NCT06440577

Craving & Decision-Making

Decision Neuroscience of Craving

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 160 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Craving is the strong desire for something, such as for substances in drug addiction and food or other activities in everyday life. Recent work suggests craving can influence how people make decisions and assign value to choice options available to them, yet the neural mechanisms underlying these interactions between craving and valuation remain unknown. To address this, this study uses cognitive decision-making tasks that measure how much individuals will pay (from a study endowment) to have everyday consumer items or snack foods when they crave something specific (opioids or a specific snack, respectively). First, the study will identify the neural mechanisms for how drug craving (craving for opioids) interacts with valuation for consumer items that have associations with drug use or not in people receiving treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). This will be evaluated in the activity patterns and interactions among brain regions involved in craving and value assignment during decision-making. Then, the study will examine for parallel mechanisms for how food craving (craving for a specific snack) interacts with valuation for snack food items that have similar features to the craved snack or not in people receiving treatment for OUD and non-psychiatric community control participants.

Conditions

• Decision Making

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Audio-visual stimuli (Neutral-Relaxing)	Audio instruction for participant to allow themselves to experience their feelings followed by 3-min passive viewing of images of neutral everyday objects (e.g., tools, dirt) and their use (construction, gardening).
BEHAVIORAL	Audio-visual stimuli (Drug)	Audio instruction for participant to allow themselves to experience their feelings followed by 3-min passive viewing of images of drug paraphernalia (e.g., syringe, tourniquet, heroin) and preparation.
BEHAVIORAL	Audio-visual stimuli (Non-Food)	Audio instruction for participant to focus their attention on the experimenter followed by 3-min audio-guided viewing of the experimenter opening/unwrapping an everyday object (e.g., box of crayons) and taking out its contents.
BEHAVIORAL	Audio-visual stimuli (Food)	Audio instruction for participant to focus their attention on the experimenter followed by 3-min audio-guided viewing of the experimenter opening/unwrapping a snack (e.g., chocolate bar, bag of chips) and taking out its contents.

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-06-18
• Primary completion: 2026-12-01
• Completion: 2026-12-01
• First posted: 2024-06-04
• Last updated: 2025-05-23

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States