Conditions: Cocaine Use Disorders
Keywords: substance related disorders
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 27
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
In summary, this pilot study will explore the use of an innovative pharmacologic approach to the treatment of substance dependence through the facilitation of extinction of response to cocaine-conditioned cues in cocaine-dependent individuals. If DCS proves successful in this preliminary study, a controlled treatment trial will be planned. This novel approach could have implications for the treatment of multiple substance use disorders including methamphetamine, marijuana and opiate dependence.

Detailed description:
Cocaine dependence remains a serious problem in the US today and in spite of two decades of intense research, efficacious pharmacotherapeutic treatments have not been identified. Cocaine-associated environmental cues can elicit drug craving and exposure to cocaine-related cues is likely to be involved in relapse. Emerging data supports the role of glutamate in extinction of associative learning in animal models of rear-conditioning and clinical studies of exposure treatment for anxiety disorders. A recent study demonstrated DCS acceleration of cocaine-induced conditioned place preference in rats. Exploration of DCS in facilitating extinction of response to drug-related cues in humans is needed. The proposed study will extend these innovative and promising findings from the basic science arena and anxiety disorders field in a proof of concept investigation of DCS facilitation of extinction of response to cocaine-related cues in a human laboratory paradigm.

Arms:
arm 1: D-Cycloserine 50 mg is a partial glutamate agonist. Participants received DCS prior to cocaine cue exposure sessions. arm 2: Saline comparator. Participants received placebo prior to cocaine cue exposure sessions.

Interventions: intervention 1: D-cycloserine intervention 2: Placebo
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: 50 mg DCS intervention 2: Placebo

Protocol document: