Assessing Habitual, Goal-Directed, and Pavlovian Influences in Alcohol Use Disorder
Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phaseNot listed
Trial typeObservational
Biological sexAll
Age18-65
SponsorTechnische Universität Dresden
About this trial
The first aim of this study is to establish the role of maladaptive reliance on habits for impaired control in addiction, employing a novel task - the Action-Sequence-Task (AST), which assesses interference between habitual and goal-directed control. The AST, along with the developed computational model, will be employed to test whether participants with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) and control participants differ with respect to task performance and estimated model parameters. The investigators hypothesize stronger habitual behavior (increased habitual tendency) and an increased susceptibility to conflict between habitual and goal-directed control, measured as increased interference, are associated with AUD.
The second aim of the study is to understand whether Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer (PIT) reflects more of a controlled, goal-directed process, or a more automatic, habitual process. The investigators will use the single-lever PIT task as it is an efficient tool for testing the interaction between Pavlovian cues and instrumental behavior, especially when they are in conflict. In these trials, top-down control must be allocated to successfully overcome the conflict, which may share some common underlying mechanisms with the arbitration between goal-directed and habitual behavior during conflict, as assessed by the novel AST. The third aim of the study is to investigate whether severely dependent AUD patients would show a stronger PIT effect compared to a control group, consistent with the investigators' previous findings.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
18-65 years of age
AUD subjects only: meet 4 or more criteria for DSM-5 alcohol use disorder
Sufficient motor skills and visual acuity to use PC
Ability to consent to the study and complete the questionnaires
Disqualifiers
Lifetime diagnosis of DSM-5 bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or schizophrenia spectrum disorder
Current diagnosis of severe major depression according to DSM-5, or presence of suicidal intention
Pregnancy
Severe withdrawal symptoms
Trial population
Participants recruited through the addiction in- and outpatient clinic of University Hospital Dresden as well as from our partner clinic in Radebeul.
Trial design
Design model
Case-control
Time perspective
Cross-sectional
Treatments tested in this trial
Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) paradigm
BehavioralThe paradigm consists of four parts: In the first part, an instrumental learning task is completed in which subjects must learn which stimuli require a response and which do not. In the second part, a classical (Pavlovian) conditioning task is then completed in which subjects learn by passive viewing which stimuli are associated with certain amounts of money. The third part measures to which instrumental responses (learned in Part 1) are modulated by the presentation of the classically conditioned stimuli (learned in Part 2). At the same time drug-associated stimuli are presented in the background measuring to which extent they conflict with the learned instrumental behavior. In the last part, query trials are implemented in which the participants have to choose between two pictures to assess the relative cue value.
Action Sequence Task (AST)
BehavioralParticipants need to press four keys according to the cue location; two keys are associated with high reward, while the other two are associated with low reward in case of correct and timely responses. The explicit goal is to maximize the reward. While in half of the trials the cues are presented in a random order, in the other half of the trials, participants repeatedly perform a fixed action sequence of 12 elements (habit condition). The degree of action sequence chunking (i.e. automation) is assessed via the differences in error rates and reaction times between the random and fixed order condition (habit parameter). Importantly, 15% of all trials are dual- target trials. In these the goal-directed system (press high reward key) and the action sequence (press sequence key) can either be in line (congruent trials) or in conflict (incongruent trials) with each other, thus the interference between goal-directed and habitual control can be tested.
Basic psychological assessment (interview)
Diagnostic test* Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Disorders (SCID) Current Depression: * SCID Mania * SCID alcohol use disorder (AUD) * SCID tobacco use disorder (TUD) * Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) * Alcohol quantity-frequency * Tobacco quantity-frequency * Cannabis and other substances quantity-frequency
Basic psychological assessment (questionnaires)
Diagnostic test* Sociodemographics * Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI) * Fagerström Test for Nicotine depend (FTND) * Barratt Impulsiveness Scale - Kurzversion (BIS-15) * Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) * Cannabis Use Disorders Identification Test (CUDIT) * Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS)
Neuropsychology tests
Behavioral* Digit-Symbol-Test (DST) * Go/Nogo Simon task * Counting Stroop Task * Value-based decision-making task (VBDM)
Treatment groups
180 Participants
are divided into 2 treatment groupsGroup A: Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) Group5 interventions
Group B: Control Group5 interventions
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
1
Behavioral single-lever Pavlovian to instrumental transfer (PIT) effect
Strength of interference PIT effect assessed with the single-lever PIT paradigm: increased error rate in the incongruent condition as compared with the congruent condition.
Time frame
1 day, 1 hour2
Action Sequence Task (AST) day one and day two
Habit formation: faster response time and decreased errors of preforming fixed compared to the random action sequence. Shift from goal-directed to habitual control: less choices of the high reward keys in trials in the incongruent trials where the goal-directed control and the habitual action sequence are in conflict (incongruent trials)
Time frame
2 days, 1 hour per daySecondary outcomes
1
Counting Stroop task
Interference cost at the stimulus level: increased error rate in the incongruent condition as compared with the congruent condition.
Time frame
1 day, 10 minutes2
Go-Nogo Simon task
Interference cost at the response level: increased error rate in the incongruent condition as compared with the congruent condition. Response inhibition: error rate during No-go trials.
Time frame
1 day, 20 minutesSponsors and contacts
Click on the lead sponsor to view all of their trials.
Technische Universität Dresden
Lead sponsor
Charite University, Berlin, Germany
Collaborator
Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim
Collaborator
Source ClinicalTrials.gov