Addiction
Conditions
Keywords
Addiction, Craving, Voice, Vocal features, Biomarker
Brief summary
Addiction is a psychiatric disorder associated with craving, an unwanted, intense and persistent desire to use the substance/addictive behavior, leading to frequent relapses. Craving is fluctuating, influenced by internal factors or environmental context, and can be evaluated only by self-report which can be burdensome. It has been shown that craving predicts relapse, making it a major treatment target in addiction. Identify biomarkers of craving could enable to detect craving in a passive way (without major effort from individuals to report it) and would be a major improvement. The goal of this observational study is to explore if voice could be a biomarker of craving in adults with substance or behavioral addictions. The main question it aims to answer is: • Is there voice features associated with craving episodes in addiction ? Participants will undergo a cue-reactivity protocol with different voice tasks, and then answer Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) questionnaires on smartphone, with some of the questionnaires recorded out loud with the smartphone's microphone.
Interventions
Single laboratory session during which participants undergo a cue-reactivity protocol and are exposed to neutral, addiction-cue, and stress-inducing conditions. Participants realize three different speech tasks (text reading, image description, response to semi-spontaneous question) recorded before and after the visualization of images, either neutral, addiction- related or stress-related. Craving and stress level are collected at different time during each block. No active treatment or intervention is administered.
Repeated ambulatory assessments: short smartphone questionnaires 4 times per day for 14-28 days to report craving, substance use/addictive behavior, and daily experiences, and self-initiated event-contingent reports of craving or substance use/addictive behavior. Some of the questionnaires have vocal items that should be directly answered by the participant speaking out loud. No intervention is provided.
Sponsors
University of Bordeaux
Study design
Observational model
COHORT
Time perspective
CROSS_SECTIONAL
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Identify at least one main problematic substance (cannabis, tobacco, alcohol, opiates, stimulant) or one main problematic addictive behavior (e.g : video games, gambling, food, sex…) as the primary addiction * PresentDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5) diagnosis for current Use Disorder for this primary addiction * Report regular craving and use of this primary addiction (more than 10 days in the last 30 days) * For participants recruited in treatment centers: receive outpatient treatment for this primary addiction
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Vocal acoustic features during the laboratory cue-reactivity protocol | Day 1 of individual participant timeline | Comparison of acoustic parameters across conditions (neutral, addiction, versus stress conditions): fundamental frequency, pitch, formants, speech rate, articulation rate will be extracted from voice recordings collected during standardized text reading, image description, and semi-spontaneous speech tasks, using custom Python scripts. |
| Vocal acoustic features during daily life | From day 2 through day 15 (up to day 29) of individual participant timeline | Comparison of acoustic parameters in craving versus no-craving assessments: fundamental frequency, pitch, formants, speech rate, articulation rate will be extracted from voice recordings collected during semi-spontaneous speech elicited during EMA questionnaires, using custom Python scripts. |
Countries
France
Contacts
CONTACTFuschia SERRE, Ph-D
Outcome results
None listed