Clinical trial NCT06259630: Nicotine Virtual Reality Conditioned Place Preference
Official title: Effect of Nicotine on Acquisition and Extinction of a Conditioned Place Preference in a Virtual Reality Environment
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: WITHDRAWN
Phase: PHASE4
Conditions: Nicotine Addiction
Nicotine Use Disorder
Keywords: Nicotine
Lead sponsor: University of Chicago
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2024-02-14
Enrollment: 0
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 35
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: In this between-subjects, placebo controlled, double-blind study, the investigators will examine the effects of low oral doses of nicotine on the learning and extinction of a conditioned place preference acquired in a virtual reality environment by healthy human subjects. Physiological and subjective responses to the drug will also be monitored.

Detailed description: External cues and contexts contribute to the development of smoking and the use of other drugs, and drugs themselves can alter the value of conditioned cues. Interestingly, nicotine increases the acquisition of new learning, and has been considered as a "cognitive enhancer". Nicotine also prolongs responding when responding is no longer rewarded, during extinction. Although many studies have examined the effects of drugs on learning (acquisition) and unlearning (extinction) in laboratory animals, few have investigated drug effects on learning in humans. Recently, novel procedures have been developed to study conditioning in humans, pairing initially neutral places with food, money or drugs. The investigators will use one of these procedures, a virtual place conditioning procedure, to study how nicotine affects the acquisition and extinction of conditioned behaviors in humans.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Subjects must have at least a high school education and be in good physical and mental health.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Individuals with current medical conditions, and/or a history of serious medical problems (e.g., cardiac, kidney, liver, and neurological).

Additional Exclusion Criteria include:

* regular medication,
* pregnancy,
* color blindness,
* left-handedness,
* consumption of 5 or more cigarettes per day,
* English non-fluency and current DSM-IV Axis 1 diagnosis excluding nicotine dependence.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Virtual Environment "Liking"
timeFrame: Participant rate on a visual analog scale how much they prefer one virtual environment over another
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Time spent in virtual environment
timeFrame: Participants actively choose which environment to spend time in. The length of those virtual visits is measured and compared during the study sessions
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Chicago
country: United States
facility: University of Chicago Medical Center - Human Behavioral Pharmacology Lab
state: Illinois
Study officials:
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