Increasing the Temporal Window in Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorder

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Alcohol Use Disorder

In brief

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.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT04125238

Run by

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

People needed

154

Starts

2020-11-13

Expected to finish

2024-09-30

Last updated by the study team

2026-01-23

Who can join

Age: 21 and older, up to 65. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• High-risk or harmful drinking (measured by AUDIT)
• 21-65 years of age
• Desire to quit or cut down on their drinking, but do not have proximate plans to enroll in treatment for AUD during the study period
• Report as one of their top three preferred drinks a beverage appropriate for the alcohol self-administration task (Study 1)

You may not qualify if…

• Moderate to severe DSM-5 criteria for substance-use disorders other than alcohol, nicotine, and/or marijuana
• Current diagnosis of any psychotic disorder
• History of seizure disorders or traumatic brain injury
• Contraindication for participation in the self-administration (Study 1) or MRI sessions (Studies 1 and 2)
• Current pregnancy or lactation.

Where it is running

• Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC — Roanoke, Virginia, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

Trial information comes from ClinicalTrials.gov and is refreshed daily. TrialsForMe does not provide medical care and does not run the studies it lists.