Study of Stress and Cue Effects on Brain and Behavior in Alcohol Use Disorder Using Pavlovian to Instrumental Transfer Tasks

What this Trial Is About

Researchers are studying how cues related to drugs influence behavior in people with substance use disorders, particularly focusing on alcohol use disorder AUD and smoking. The study aims to understand how acute and chronic stress impact Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer PIT, a process where conditioned cues affect instrumental actions, and how cognitive control relates to these effects. Researchers also want to compare these effects between AUD subjects and healthy controls, and develop a new task to assess general and specific PIT effects using monetary, alcohol, and food rewards. Participants will be involved in three experiments. The first uses a PIT task with monetary and alcohol cues, combined with acute stress induction via the Trier Social Stress Test and chronic stress assessments through questionnaires and hair cortisol. The second experiment investigates interference effects and cognitive control using tasks like Counting Stroop, No-go Simon, and Stop Signal tasks during fMRI, comparing AUD and non-AUD groups with varying smoking habits. The third experiment applies a new full PIT paradigm with trial-by-trial alcohol and soft drink rewards to explore specific and general PIT effects and their relation to stress and drinking behavior. During the study, participants will complete behavioral tasks, cognitive tests, and neuroimaging scans fMRI and structural MRI. Stress levels will be monitored through saliva and hair samples, along with questionnaires. Additional data like blood samples for genetic testing and ecological momentary assessments via smartphones will be collected. The main outcomes include neural and behavioral PIT effects, cognitive control measures, and stress markers. Follow-up assessments will examine alcohol consumption over 12 months, with study visits scheduled primarily in the afternoon over two consecutive days.

Cue Effects in Human Addiction: Pavlovian to Instrumental Transfer