Cerebellar Involvement in Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD)

Recruiting now · Not applicable · Has a placebo group

Conditions studied: Alcohol Use Disorder

In brief

The goal of this observational and interventional study is to better understand the involvement of the cerebellum in the brain reward system in persons with alcohol use disorder (AUD). The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. What is the nature of cerebellar input to the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in the brain reward system, and how is it perturbed in AUD? 2. What is the relationship between measures of cerebellar integrity and magnitude of reward activation to alcohol-related cues in cerebellar, VTA and other brain reward structures? 3. What is the therapeutic potential of cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for modulating alcohol cue reactivity, associated alcohol craving, and cerebellar - VTA functional connectivity in the brain reward system? Persons with AUD will be compared with healthy control participants.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT05732207

Run by

Johns Hopkins University

People needed

122

Starts

2023-10-12

Expected to finish

2027-09-01

Last updated by the study team

2026-05-11

Who can join

Age: 25 and older, up to 55. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• completed at least 8 years of education

You may not qualify if…

• Estimated Intelligence Quotient (IQ) < 90
• less than 5th grade reading level
• Left handed
• Non-fluent in English
• current drug use disorder other than alcohol (except nicotine and caffeine) and or recent drug use in the last 90 days
• Positive breath alcohol level at time of MRI scan or discrepancies between alcohol biomarker and self-report that cannot be resolved
• Exhibiting symptoms of alcohol withdrawal on visit 1 assessment
• Significant current psychiatric distress and or treatment
• History of any central nervous system disorder, presence of a seizure disorder, or use of anticonvulsant medication in the past 3 months
• any serious medical condition detected on assessment or by medical record review; or have liver function tests more than three times normal at screening
• History of metal implantation that would preclude MRI scanning; or other implants, pumps, pacemakers that would be contraindications for MRI scanning
• Abnormal MRI scan or history of significant closed head trauma
• Evidence of dementia
• For women, pregnancy

Where it is running

• Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine — Baltimore, Maryland, United States (enrolling)

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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