Drug Effects on Preference and Reward
Completed · Has a placebo group
Conditions studied: Drug Addiction
In brief
Classical conditioning is widely used to study motivational properties of addictive drugs in animals, but has rarely been used in humans. Here, we are establishing a procedure suitable for studying the neurobiology and individual determinants of classical conditioning in humans. Healthy volunteers are randomly assigned to four groups that received methamphetamine or placebo in the presence of distinctive environmental cues under paired or unpaired conditions. During each session, subjects perform tasks known to activate the ventral striatum in fMRI studies. The tasks are performed in the presence of a distinctive context, consisting of a screen background image of a beach or of mountains, accompanied by corresponding sounds. Separate groups of subjects carry out the tasks under high or low reward conditions. Within each of the two reward conditions, one group (paired), receives methamphetamine (20 mg, oral) or placebo consistently associated with one of the contexts, while the other (unpaired) receives drug or placebo unrelated to context. A fifth group (paired) perform the tasks with contextual cues but in the absence of monetary incentives. Before and after conditioning, participants carry out a series of forced choice tasks, and change of preference over time was analyzed.
Key facts
- Study ID
- NCT01722006
- Run by
- University of Chicago
- People needed
- 103
- Starts
- 2010-12-01
- Expected to finish
- 2012-07-01
- Last updated by the study team
- 2013-09-05
Who can join
Age: 18 and older, up to 35. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.
You may qualify if…
- 18-35, good healthy, normal weight, high school education, normal electrocardiogram, no psychiatric disorders,
You may not qualify if…
- current medications, night shift work, abnormal electrocardiogram, medical problems
Where it is running
- University of Chicago — Chicago, Illinois, United States
Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov
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