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Psychobiology of Stress and Alcohol Craving

Physiological, Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Psychosocial Stress and Alcohol Craving

Status
Completed
Phases
NA
Study type
Interventional
Source
ClinicalTrials.gov
Registry ID
NCT03810950
Enrollment
11
Registered
2019-01-22
Start date
2019-01-01
Completion date
2019-12-31
Last updated
2024-03-29

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Alcohol Use Disorder, Stress Reaction, Social Stress, Craving, Behavior

Brief summary

In this feasibility study the investigators are using a setup of stress-related body sensors including established as well as innovative sensor-based measures to identify predictor profiles for alcohol-related behavioral and neural measures in Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). Long-term aim is the definition of a setup of mobile sensors and their integration in a mobile infrastructure that allows the prediction of stress related alcohol intake in an ambulatory setting.

Detailed description

The long-term aim is the definition of a setup of mobile sensors and their integration in a mobile infrastructure that allows the prediction of stress related alcohol intake in an ambulatory setting. In patients with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) stress exposure is known to affect craving, cue-reactivity and relapse risk. Here, the investigators aim to identify stress- and alcohol cue-related physiological markers in a lab experiment to assess interactions between acute psychological stress exposure and alcohol cue-exposure regarding their effects on alcohol craving and related markers (attentional bias to alcohol-cues, implicit association task, neural cue-reactivity). In addition to applying established stress-related markers (cortisol in saliva, heart-rate variability, systolic blood pressure and electrodermal activity), the investigators will integrate innovative measures currently under investigation (e.g. voice stress analysis) to identify whether these additional parameters increase the predictive significance.

Interventions

BEHAVIORALTrier Social Stress Test

Test to induce high levels of acute social stress, including actors and a faked exam situation

Participants read newspaper

BEHAVIORALBarlab-Exposure

Participants are exposed to a bar situation with different sorts of alcohol available. They sniff at water and at one alcoholic drink.

Sponsors

Project Group for Automation in Medicine and Biotechnology PAMB, Mannheim
CollaboratorUNKNOWN
Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim
Lead SponsorOTHER

Study design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE

Eligibility

Sex/Gender
MALE
Age
18 Years to 65 Years
Healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

* Heavy drinking, defined by alcohol consumption of at least 20g alcohol per day (at 5 days per week) * sufficient ability to communicate with the investigators, to answer questions in oral and written form * fully informed consent * written informed consent

Exclusion criteria

* withdrawal of the declaration of consent * positive urin drug screening (cannabis, amphetamine, opiates, benzodiazepines, cocaine) * Lifetime history of DSM-5 bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or schizophrenia spectrum disorder, or substance dependence other than alcohol or nicotine or cannabis dependence. * Current threshold DSM-5 diagnosis of major depressive disorder, or presence of suicidal intention * History of severe head trauma or other severe central nervous system disorder (e.g., dementia, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis) * Current use of medications or drugs known to interact with the CNS within at least four half-lives post last intake

Design outcomes

Primary

MeasureTime frameDescription
change in heart rateat examination day: continuous measurement throughout the whole experiment (except during MRI scanning); duration around 2 hours; starting 1 hour 50 minutes after arrival of the probandheart rate acquired with ear clip (continuous time series)
change in heart rate variabilityat examination day: continuous measurement throughout the whole experiment (except during MRI scanning); duration around 2 hours; starting 1 hour 50 minutes after arrival of the probandheart rate variability acquired with ear clip (continuous time series)
change in blood pressure (systolic and diastolic)at examination day: 6 time points measured throughout the whole experiment (except during MRI scanning); at 2:20h, 2:50h, 3:20h, 3:50h, 4:50h, 5:05h after arrival of the probandacquired with pressure sleeve
change in electrodermal activityat examination day: continuous measurement throughout the whole experiment (except during MRI scanning); duration around 2 hour; starting 1h 50min after arrival of the probandtime series acquired with body sensor
neural alcohol-related cue-reactivityat examination day: measured directly after the behavioral tasks at the end of the lab experiment% signal change, measured with fMRI; paradigm Vollstädt-Klein et al. 2010 \[% signal change is not a change over time; it is measured during one experimental session\]
neural inhibition processingat examination day: measured directly after the behavioral tasks at the end of the lab experiment% signal change, measured with fMRI; stop-signal reaction time task (Fauth-Buhler et al. 2012) \[% signal change is not a change over time; it is measured during one experimental session\]
neural emotion processingat examination day: measured directly after the behavioral tasks at the end of the lab experiment% signal change, measured with fMRI; faces task (Hariri et al. 2002) \[% signal change is not a change over time; it is measured during one experimental session\]
resting state activityat examination day: measured directly after the behavioral tasks at the end of the lab experimentresting state connectivity measured with fMRI
attentional bias to alcohol cuesat examination day: measured directly after the stress task / newspaper reading; before implicit alcohol association and MRI sessionmeasured with reaction time differences (in milliseconds) using the dotprobe-task (Vollstädt-Klein et al. 2009) \[reaction time differences is not a change over time; it is measured during one experimental session\]
implicit alcohol associationat examination day: measured after the stress task / newspaper reading, directly after the attentional bias to alcohol cues ; before MRI sessionmeasured with reaction time differences (in milliseconds) using the implicit association task (Wiers et al. 2016) \[reaction time differences is not a change over time; it is measured during one experimental session\]
change in level of cortisolat examination day: 6 time points measured throughout the whole experiment (except during MRI scanning); at hours:minutes 2:20, 2:50, 3:20, 3:50, 4:50, 5:05 after arrival of the probandcortisol measured in saliva as a stress marker
change in voice stress patternat examination day: 6 time points measured throughout the whole experiment (except during MRI scanning); at hours:minutes 2:20, 2:50, 3:20, 3:50, 4:50, 5:05 after arrival of the probandaudio file of participants' voice for voice stress pattern analysis will be recorded. From this a multivariate measure (i.e. multivariate vector) will be acquired (including frequency, loudness etc.)
change in alcohol urgesat examination day: 6 time points measured throughout the whole experiment (except during MRI scanning); at hours:minutes 2:20, 2:50, 3:20, 3:50, 4:50, 5:05 after arrival of the probandelf-report questionnaire: Alcohol Urge Questionnaire (AUQ); Bohn et al. 1995
change in alcohol cravingat examination day: 6 time points measured throughout the whole experiment (except during MRI scanning); at hours:minutes 2:20, 2:50, 3:20, 3:50, 4:50, 5:05 after arrival of the probandself-report How strong is your craving for alcohol?: reported on a visual analogue scale ranging from 0 to 100

Countries

Germany

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026