NCT06145490

Neurobehavioral Correlates of Caffeine on Anxiety, Avoidance and Interoception in Healthy Individuals and Panic Disorder.

Adenosine Receptors From Genes to Behavior: Neurobehavioral Correlates of Caffeine on Anxiety, Avoidance, Decision-Making and Interoception in Healthy Individuals and Panic Disorder.

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 42 (actual)
• Sponsor: Uppsala University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The current study is a placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized controlled study using a cross-over design, including Healthy Controls (HC) and participants with Panic Disorder (PD). The primary aim of the study is to investigate the neural correlates and behavioral effects of caffeine (versus placebo), and its impact on emotional reactivity, decision-making, and interoception, and compare the effects in individuals with PD vs HCs. Subjective anxiety and the occurrence of panic attacks will also be measured. Multimodal neuroimaging methods, such as structural and functional MRI, will be used to address the aims of the study. Emotional reactivity, emotional decision-making and interoception will be measured with experimental tasks in a 7 Tesla (7T) magnetic resonance (MR) scanner, jointly with measures of skin conductance, heart rate, respiratory rate, and self-reported ratings of anxiety and interoception. Emotional reactivity will be assessed using emotional and neutral faces. Emotional decision-making will be assessed with an approach-avoidance conflict task. Changes in interoception (bodily sensation, such as pulse and respiration) will be explored using a task in which participants are asked to focus on their breathing or an external stimulus. Caffeine effects on brain resting-state activity will also be assessed. All tasks will be conducted while in the 7T MR scanner. A secondary aim of the study is to examine the impact of genetic variability in the adenosine A2A receptor (ADORA2A) genotype (e.g., rs5751876 T/T) on the effects of caffeine (vs placebo), as ADORA2A genotype has previously been associated with elevated caffeine-induced anxiety.

Detailed description

Given the novelty of the intended study and the lack of previous neuroimaging and emotion-related behavioral studies on caffeine effects in HCs and PD, analyses will be exploratory without directed hypotheses. It is intended to conduct between-group analyses (HCs vs PD) in the two conditions (caffeine versus placebo), as well as within-group analyses in HCs and PD separately. Between-group analyses will also be conducted between individuals with different ADORA2A genotypes.

Conditions

• Panic Disorder
• Healthy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT	Caffeine	Caffeine capsule 250 mg, oral intake
DRUG	Placebo	Placebo capsule, oral intake

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-10-29
• Primary completion: 2025-05-15
• Completion: 2025-05-15
• First posted: 2023-11-24
• Last updated: 2026-02-27

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Sweden