Neurobehavioral Profiles of Adaptive Stress Responses in Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorder

Summary

The goal of this observational study is to investigate longitudinal stress response profiles and adaptive versus non-adaptive stress responses in alcohol use disorder. The main questions the projects aims to answer are:

What are the neurobehavioral underpinnings of adaptive stress responses and resilience to repeated stress exposure with regards to:

* alcohol craving?
* alcohol use?
* their modulation by prior stress exposure, social interactions, coping strategies and individual health behavior?

Participants will:

* be exposed to an established experimental stress-induction protocol, the Trier Social Stress Test
* be exposed to their favorite drink in a bar lab environment
* be assessed using fMRI to determine their neural alcohol cue reactivity, response inhibition, and emotion processing
* conduct an ambulatory phase to assess stressors, alcohol craving, substance use and details on social interactions, health behavior and coping strategies using ecological momentary assessment tools.

Conditions

• Alcohol Use Disorder
• Stress Reaction
• Social Stress
• Craving
• Relapse
• Addiction, Alcohol
• Risk Behavior

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Trier Social Stress Test

Test to induce high levels of acute social stress, including actors, representing the judging panel, and a faked exam situation (15 minutes duration).

BEHAVIORAL

Barlab Cue-Exposure

Participants are exposed to a bar situation with their individual favorite alcohol presented. They handle their favorite alcoholic drink and water (9 minutes duration).

BEHAVIORAL

Functional magnetic resonance imaging

Participants undergo a fMRI screening including three different behavioral tasks assessing alcohol cue reactivity, response inhibition, and emotion processing

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Patrick Bach, MD, PhD · Central Institute of Mental Health

• Falk Kiefer, MD · Central Institute of Mental Health

• Clemens Kirschbaum, PhD · Technical University Dresden

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-12-01

Primary Completion

2027-06-30

Completion

2027-06-30

Countries

• Germany

Study Locations