Project Details
Projekt
Learning and decision making as predictors of treatment outcome in alcohol use disorder
Subject Area
Biological Psychiatry
Term
from 2012 to 2020
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 186318919
Project 2 will examine 130 detoxified alcohol-dependent patients and 40 age- and gender matched controls. All subjects will be treated with Zooming Joystick Task (ZJT) training to alter a habitual alcohol cue approach bias. The primary aim of this project is to assess 1) which behavioural and neuroimaging alterations (fMRI) associated with reward-based learning (see Projects 1 &3) are altered by ZJT treatment and which alterations predict treatment outcome (primary outcome: relapse, secondary outcome: amount of alcohol intake) within the follow-up period of 6 months, 2) how these alterations interact with clinical and psychosocial factors that can modify relapse risk, and 3) to provide data for genetic and imaging analyses and modelling. Furthermore, we will explore gender effects on functional imaging parameters of learning. Patients will be detoxified in an inpatient setting, receive six sessions of the ZJT in a randomized placebo controlled design and will be followed for six months using the Time-Line Follow-Back Procedure. Clinical assessments, behavioural paradigms of learning, and brain imaging will be carried out within at least four half-lives after any psychotropic medication. Subjects will undergo medical management with biweekly follow-ups and predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria as previously described. We will apply functional imaging paradigms assessing 1) Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer, 2) habitual verus goal directed behaviour and 3) working memory. We will associate model parameters of learning with functional activation and prospective intake controlling for comorbidity, psychosocial and neurobiological disease severity markers.
DFG Programme
Research Units
