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Effects of Olfactory Stimuli in Virtual Reality Cue Exposure on Craving and Attentional Bias in Alcohol Use Disorder

NCT07667790 · Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 60

Last updated 2026-06-25

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a prevalent and burdensome clinical condition with high relapse rates. A central risk factor for relapse is craving for alcohol-often accompanied by an attentional bias toward alcohol-related stimuli-which can be evoked by both real-world and virtual stimuli in immersive virtual reality (VR). In addition to visual and auditory stimuli, olfactory stimuli are increasingly recognized as important for creating realistic, multisensory VR environments. However, no systematic investigation has yet examined how olfactory stimuli embedded in VR-based cue exposure (VR-CE) influence craving and attentional bias in patients with AUD.

The goal of this prospective experimental single-arm clinical study, with a 2 (visual stimuli: neutral vs. alcohol-related VR scenarios) × 2 (olfactory stimuli: no odor vs. alcohol-related odor) within-subjects factorial design, is to determine how visual and olfactory stimuli contribute to the outcomes during a multimodal VR-CE in patients with AUD.

The main question is whether VR-CE with concurrent visual and olfactory alcohol-related stimuli induces a greater increase in craving and attentional bias from baseline than exposure to a single modality (visual or olfactory), as assessed by subjective and psychophysiological measures in patients with AUD.

Conditions

Interventions

DEVICE

VR-CE

Virtual reality cue exposure (VR-CE) using visual (neutral vs. alcohol-related VR scenarios) and olfactory (no odor vs. alcohol-related odor) stimuli conditions.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Charite University, Berlin, Germany

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Alva Lütt, Dr. med. · Psychiatric University Hospital Charité at St. Hedwig Hospital, Berlin, Berlin 10115

  • Stefan Gutwinski, Prof. Dr. med. · Psychiatric University Hospital Charité at St. Hedwig Hospital, Berlin, Berlin 10115

Study Design

Allocation
NA
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
65 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2026-07-01
Primary Completion
2027-07-31
Completion
2027-07-31

Countries

  • Germany

Study Locations

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Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT07667790 on ClinicalTrials.gov