Increasing the Temporal Window in Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorder

Summary

Episodic future thinking (EFT) is based on the new science of prospection, which was first identified in a Science publication in 2007 and refers to pre-experiencing the future by simulation. Considerable evidence suggests that prospection is important for understanding human cognition, affect, motivation, and action. Individuals with damaged frontal areas, as well as individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD), show deficits in planning prospectively. One systematic method to engender prospection is via EFT. EFT, as applied in our prior studies and in this proposal consists of having participants develop positive plausible future events that correspond to several future time frames (e.g., 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months etc). For each of these timeframes participants are asked to concretize the events (e.g., What are you doing? Who will be there? What will you see, hear, smell, and feel?). We and others have used EFT to decrease delay discounting (DD) in individuals with AUD and smokers, as well as normal weight, overweight, and obese populations when compared to the control condition, control episodic thinking (CET). Consistent with reinforcer pathology, EFT also reduces alcohol valuation in the purchase task among individuals with AUD. However, no study to date has examined whether EFT reduces alcohol self-administration in the laboratory. Moreover, the neural correlates of EFT in AUD are also unknown. In these studies, we propose to test an intervention, EFT, which we hypothesize will decrease reinforcer pathology measures in a bar-like setting in the laboratory; that is, EFT will decrease delay discounting, as well as alcohol self-administration, demand, and craving compared to a control episodic thinking (CET) condition. Moreover, we hypothesize EFT will enhance activation in brain regions associated with prospection (e.g., hippocampus and amygdala) and the executive decision system (e.g., DLPFC). We will also examine the effect of EFT on real-world drinking.

Conditions

• Alcohol Use Disorder

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Episodic Future Thinking

Participants will generate descriptions of vivid positive future events.

BEHAVIORAL

Control Episodic Thinking

Participants will generate descriptions of vivid positive recent past events.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

  collaborator NIH

• McMaster University

  collaborator OTHER

• Arizona State University

  collaborator OTHER

• Carilion Clinic

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Kentucky

  collaborator OTHER

• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Stephen M LaConte, PhD · Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

21 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-11-13

Primary Completion

2024-08-28

Completion

2024-09-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations