NCT07340554

Neuroimaging of Adolescent Cannabis Use Treatment

Neuroimaging of Instrumental Learning Networks in Adolescent Cannabis Use Treatment

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 80 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Indiana University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 14 Years – 17 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study is testing whether brain activity related to learning can help predict how well teens respond to a treatment program designed to reduce cannabis use. Teens ages 14-17 will complete a brain scan and then take part in 10 weekly virtual sessions where they report cannabis use and complete drug tests at home. Participants can earn prizes for staying cannabis-free.

Detailed description

This is a 13-week clinical trial to examine whether success during contingency management treatment for cannabis use is associated with baseline functioning of instrumental learning neuro-circuitries. The investigators propose to recruit N=80 youths ages 14-17 with varying levels of cannabis use. Following phone prescreening, participants will undergo informed consent/assent and eligibility assessment with an in-person visit. Participants who are eligible will undergo a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan where participants will perform an instrumental learning task during a second in-person visit. At this visit, participants and participants' guardians or most recent caregiver will be provided with ten urine drug screens. A tutorial will be provided by study staff on how to administer and read urine drug screens. After the fMRI scan, participants will undergo ten weekly virtual contingency management sessions administered via HIPAA-compliant telehealth software (e.g., Microsoft Teams). At each contingency management session, participants will be asked to provide a urine sample, and participants' guardians will be asked to administer the urine drug screen based on this sample. At each contingency management session, the timeline followback will be used to assess which days since the last session participants used cannabis at all. Finally, at each contingency management session, participants will answer brief questionnaires regarding participants' current cannabis cravings and cannabis withdrawal symptoms. For the first two sessions, participants will be able to spin a virtual wheel to win prizes (either positive affirmations or amazon gift cards in varying amounts from $5-$100) for producing a urine drug screen and answering the questions. For sessions 3-10, participants will spin the virtual wheel to win prizes after producing a urine drug screen that is negative for cannabinoids and reporting that they have not used cannabis since the last session. After the ten weekly contingency management sessions, participants will return for an in-person visit where participants will answer questions regarding their cannabis use disorder symptoms during the contingency management treatment and readiness to change. The investigators' specific aims are to identify associations between baseline Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) symptom levels and neural activity during instrumental learning in cannabis-using adolescents (Aim 1) and Identify associations between neural activity during instrumental learning and reductions in cannabis use frequency during contingency management (Aim 2).

Conditions

• Cannabis Use
• Cannabis Dependence
• Cannabis Use Disorder
• Cannabis Abuse
• Cannabis Intoxication
• Cannabis Smoking
• Cannabis Withdrawal
• Cannabis-Related Disorder
• Cannabis Abuse, in Remission
• Cannabis Abuse, Episodic Use
• Marijuana
• Marijuana Abuse
• Marijuana Use
• Marijuana Smoking
• Marijuana Dependence
• Marijuana User
• Marijuana-Related Disorder
• Marijuana Use Disorder
• Addiction
• Addiction, Substance
• Substance Use
• Substance Use Disorders
• Substance Dependence
• Substance Abuse
• Substance Related Problem
• Substance Abuse Drug Chronic

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Contingency Management	Contingency management is an evidence-based behavioral intervention used to treat substance use disorders, including cannabis use disorder (CUD). Contingency management operates on the principles of instrumental learning, where positive reinforcement is used to encourage desired behaviors, such as abstinence from cannabis. First, specific target behaviors are identified for reinforcement. In CUD, this is often abstinence from cannabis use, verified through regular urine drug screens and self-reports. If the target behavior (i.e., abstaining from cannabis for a specified time period) is achieved, then patients receive tangible rewards immediately after attaining the target behavior. These rewards are often in the form of money, vouchers, or other incentives that are meaningful to the individual. We will examine whether success during contingency management treatment for cannabis use is associated with neural activity during instrumental learning in N=80 adolescents ages 14-17.
DEVICE	Elastic Net Regression	We will apply an elastic net regression model to the neuroimaging data to estimate CUDIT score based on neuroimaging data.

Timeline

• Start date: 2026-04-01
• Primary completion: 2030-05-01
• Completion: 2030-07-01
• First posted: 2026-01-14
• Last updated: 2026-03-27

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States

Regulatory

• FDA-regulated device study