People Who Use Opioids/People With Opioid Use Disorder (OUD)
Conditions
Brief summary
The purpose of this study is to assess dyadic physiological coherence and subjective empathic attunement during meditation practices and their association with opioid-related outcomes.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALMeditation
20 minutes of guided meditation during the laboratory session involving mindfulness of breathing and lovingkindness practice.
BEHAVIORALPsychoeducation
20 minute psychoeducational script on the impact of opioid use on the brain.
Sponsors
University of California, San Diego
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
DOUBLE (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
1. Persons, aged 18 or older 2. Current near daily use of prescribed or illicit opioid agonists or mixed opioid agonist-antagonists for ≥90 days 3. Must be able to speak and understand English
Exclusion criteria
1. Cognitive Impairment that would preclude participation in the research protocol 2. Active suicidal intent or psychosis
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Neurophysiological synchrony | During the intervention and for 5 minutes afterwards | Dyadic Neural Synchrony (DNS) across electrodes and dyads will be computed from EEG oscillations using established inter-brain connectivity metrics. DNS will be quantified as a dyadic coupling parameter computed from time-series features extracted from each participant's EEG activity. Higher DNS values indicate greater therapist-patient neural attunement. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Interpersonal Attunement | During Intervention | Interpersonal attunement measured by the Interpersonal Attunement Rating Scale, a 0-10 numeric rating scale to assess sense of connection with the other person (0=no attunement, 10=very high attunement). |
| Opioid Craving | Pre-Intervention, during Intervention, immediately post-Intervention, and at 1 month follow-up | Opioid craving measured by 0-10 numeric rating scale (0=no craving, 10=extreme craving). |
| Opioid Use | Pre-Intervention, and 1 month Follow-Up | Days of opioid use measured by the Timeline Followback Interview and completion of a urine drug toxicology screen. |
| Severity of Pain | Pre-Intervention, during Intervention, immediately post-Intervention, and at 1 month follow-up | Pain rating measured by scores on Brief Pain Inventory, with higher scores indicating higher pain severity (min 0, max 10) |
| Affect | Pre-Intervention, during Intervention, and immediately post-Intervention. | Positive and negative affect measured on a 0-10 numeric rating scale (0=low affect, 10=very high affect). |
| State Self-Transcendence | Pre-Intervention, during Intervention, immediately post-Intervention. | Nondual awareness measured by the Nondual Awareness Dimensional Assessment Measure- State (NADA-S), with scores ranging from 0 to 30, with higher scores indicating greater self-transcendence |
| Metacognitive processes | Pre-Intervention, during Intervention, and immediately post-Intervention. | Metacognitive Processes of Decentering Scale (MPODS), a 3-Item scale with scores ranging from 0 to 30, with higher scores indicating greater capacity for meta-awareness, non-reactivity, and disidentification. |
| Cardiac-autonomic synchrony | During the intervention and for 5 minutes afterwards | Cardiac-autonomic synchrony (CAS) will be computed from heart rate variability. CAS will be quantified as a dyadic coupling parameter computed from time-series features extracted from each participant's R-R intervals. Higher CAS values indicate greater therapist-patient autonomic attunement. |
| Facial expression synchrony | During the intervention and for 5 minutes afterwards | Facial Expression Synchrony (FES) will be assessed using automated facial expression analysis derived from computer-vision-based facial landmark and action-unit detection. FES will be quantified as a dyadic coupling parameter computed from time-series features extracted from each participant's facial expressions. Higher FES values indicate greater therapist-patient affective attunement |
Countries
United States
Contacts
CONTACTLori Kroh, BS
CONTACTKelly Hendrickson, MS
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOREric Garland, PhD
University of California, San Diego
Outcome results
None listed