NCT02772978

Dopamine Responsivity in Gamblers

A Randomized, Double-Blind Study of Neural Circuit Responses to COMT Inhibitors in PPG

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 19 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of California, San Francisco · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 50 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study deals with how people decide between rewards of different value. The investigators want to understand how the brain's dopamine system impacts this kind of decision making. The investigators will use a medication, tolcapone, which can temporarily affect the dopamine system.

Detailed description

Tolcapone increases the effects of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is a substance that is normally present in the brain. It may increase body movement and may also change a person's ability to process information. Tolcapone stops one's own naturally-released dopamine from being broken down as quickly. The investigators are interested in learning if tolcapone has positive effects on a person's decisions about rewards.

Conditions

• Pathological Gambling

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DRUG	Tolcapone	Tolcapone is in the medication class of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitors
DRUG	Placebo	A placebo is a tablet or capsule that looks like the study medication (in this case, tolcapone) but does not contain any active ingredients

Timeline

• Start date: 2014-08-01
• Primary completion: 2015-09-01
• Completion: 2015-09-01
• First posted: 2016-05-16
• Last updated: 2021-02-16
• Results posted: 2021-02-16