Brain and Stress Study — BASS  

Stress, Psychological Clinical Trial

Official title: Neuroinflammatory Mechanisms Linking Chronic Stress to Motivational Deficits

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

Motivational deficits such as anhedonia are core to several psychiatric disorders and underlie significant functional impairment. This double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial of minocycline, an anti-[neuro]inflammatory agent, examines links between chronic stress and responses to a reward-related motivation task. It will evaluate the effects of pharmacologically attenuating neuroinflammation on behavioral responses to a reward-related motivation task in individuals experiencing unemployment. Understanding the effects of neuroinflammation on reward function among individuals experiencing chronic stress represents a critical first step in identifying novel neuroimmune targets for future clinical trials.

Clinical Trial Description

This study seeks to conduct translational work that extends rich preclinical findings to the clinical domain to validate whether neuroinflammatory dysregulation is strongly tied to anhedonia. This project addresses critical gaps in the scientific literature by recruiting a chronically stressed sample of individuals-employment seeking individuals who report significant stress-- and will use an experimental therapeutics approach to attenuate neuroinflammation and assess behavioral changes in motivation.

One major obstacle in understanding how neuroinflammation influences motivation involves technological challenges such that conventional approaches are invasive, expensive, and/or lacking specificity. Although static levels of neuroinflammation in humans have been measured via cross sectional studies, capturing behavioral shifts following experimental manipulation has not been done. This gap limits the ability to develop a more precise understanding of how neuroinflammation causes motivational deficits in humans. The proposed project will employ a mechanistic clinical trial of the anti-[neuro]inflammatory agent, minocycline, to address these limitations. In animal models, minocycline has attenuated the deleterious effects of neuroinflammation on neurogenesis, long-term potentiation, and neuronal survival. This study will extend research to humans to examine whether links between neuroinflammation and behavioral responses to a reward-related motivation task differ among chronically stressed individuals taking minocycline and the placebo control. The proposed project will provide preliminary evidence for potential neural targets that have relevance for motivational deficits due to neuroinflammation.

Once screening is complete, participants will come to UNC to complete quality-of-life surveys, learn about the full study schedule, and receive the first dose of medication. This visit will last about 90 minutes. Participants will be asked to participate in two medication periods, meaning they will take both minocycline (antibiotic medication) for 5-days, and an inactive substance (placebo sugar pill) for 5-days. This will investigate whether there are changes in their responses to negative and positive information. After taking the first medication for five days, participants will come in to complete computer tasks (Probabilistic Reward Task, Negative Emotion Dot Probe, and Threatening Visual Search Task) and some follow-up surveys (Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale and Motivation and Pleasure Scale). This visit will last about 90 minutes. Participants will then get at least a 2-week break before taking the second medication for five days. Then, they will come back for another 90-minute visit to complete the same computer tasks and follow-up surveys. The total study duration including the break is about one month. The total time in study sessions on campus over the month will be 4.5 hours. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Motivation
• Stress, Psychological

• NCT number: NCT06044090
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 4
• Start date: September 12, 2022
• Completion date: December 19, 2023