Active clinical trials for "Alcoholism"

The purpose of this study is to determine whether extensive internet based cognitive behavior treatment program with guidance is a more effective method to treat individuals with alcohol use disorders than a briefer cognitive behavior treatment program without guidance.

A total of at least 48 healthy subjects with a history of social drinking will be recruited into this single-centre, randomized, double-blind, cross-over study. Subjects will be genetically stratified to result in equal numbers of A118G 'AA' homozygotes (n=24) and A118G 'G' carriers (n=24). Subjects will participate in all three treatment periods and will be randomized to receive each of the following for 5 days: Treatment A: Placebo, Treatment B: Naltrexone (NTX) 50 mg once daily (25 mg once daily for the first two days) and Treatment C: GSK1521498 10 mg once daily. A washout period will be of at least 14 days between treatments. Subjects will return for a follow-up visit 7-10 days after the final treatment session washout period has been completed. Subjects will attend the clinical research unit on days 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 to monitor safety and tolerability for both drugs. Subjects will attend the clinical unit on days 4 and 5 for a two day assessment, using a series of pharmacodynamic measurements known to be sensitive to the effects of GSK1521498 and/or NTX: Functional brain response to alcohol and food cues; plasma cortisol; hedonic and consummatory eating behaviors; subjective response to an ethanol challenge; experimental pain threshold; and cognitive tests of attention bias towards alcohol and food cues.

This is a randomized, placebo controlled trial of dietary zinc and S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe) in otherwise healthy alcoholic US Veterans. The primary goal is to determine if either dietary zinc or S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe) can augment lung immune defenses in alcoholics and thereby decrease the risk of lung injury and infection.

To contribute to the understanding of the underlying neurobiological mechanism behind the interaction of alcohol and nalmefene

To purpose of the present study is to investigate the feasibility and efficacy of a computerized working memory training in improving cognitive functioning and alcohol use outcomes, in individuals with alcohol use disorders.

With the aging of western societies in the coming years combined with increasing alcohol consumption among elderly, the number of elderly with alcohol problems is expected to rise considerably. Elderly patients are often lonely; suffer from feelings of loss, fear to be a burden on their children and on society, and feel powerless. On the surface their alcohol related problems seem less severe that those of the middle-aged patients while in reality co-morbidity and social issues complicate alcohol dependency. Currently, no specific treatment tailored for alcohol use disorder among elderly is available. Consequently they receive either no treatment, are given brief advising from the general practitioner or are referred to treatment at specialized treatment institutions with no specific treatment for elderly. The investigators propose a study aimed at developing and testing an outpatient behavior therapy program for alcohol use disorders for seniors (60 years and older), which - if effective - can be easily implemented in routine care. Three centers from Denmark, Germany and USA (New Mexico) will participate. All three centers have a long and extensive experience with alcohol treatment and alcohol research. Patients fulfilling the DSM 5 criteria for alcohol use disorder are eligible for the study. After informed consent participants will be randomly assigned to either Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET), four sessions/one session per week or MET followed by Community Re-enforcement Approach (CRA), eight sessions/one session per week - thus 12 weeks of treatment in total. 50% will receive MET and 50% MET+CRA. Primary outcome is percentage of patients with abstinence or controlled use (alcohol intake of equivalent blood alcohol content equal to or less than 0.5‰.). A total of 1000 patients will be enrolled. Participants will be assessed with a battery of international validated instruments measuring drinking pattern as well as key elements of treatment. Participants are assessed before initiation of treatment, at the end of MET treatment (four weeks), at the end of MET+CRA treatment (12 weeks), at 6 months, and at 12 months.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the combination of prazosin and naltrexone will decrease alcohol cravings and drinking in individuals who have problems with alcohol and have used alcohol at risky levels compare to naltrexone and placebo (Nal/Pl), prazosin and placebo (Praz/Pl), and double-placebo (Pl/Pl). We hypothesize that those assigned to both prazosin and naltrexone would report significantly greater decreases in percent drinking days and heavy drinking days as well as significantly greater reduction in craving from pre to post-treatment than those assigned to either single medication or double-placebo. Prazosin is a medication that is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat people with high blood pressure. Some studies have shown that prazosin may also decrease nightmares and improve sleep in Veterans suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Animal studies have consistently found that prazosin is associated with decreased alcohol consumption and that the combination of prazosin and naltrexone outperforms either medication alone. The current study is evaluating an "off-label" use of prazosin to determine whether it is helpful in decreasing alcohol cravings and consumption among people with alcohol problems. "Off-label" means that the FDA has not approved the use of prazosin for alcohol problems. Naltrexone is a medication that is FDA approved for treating alcohol problems. This study is sponsored by the Department of Defense and the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (DoD/CDMRP). We expect approximately 120 participants in this study, which will run over approximately 4 years. Study participants will be involved in the study for 7 weeks, or until they complete the Final Assessment.

This project compares Family History Positive (FHP) for alcoholism subjects to matched Family History Negative (FHN) subjects derived from the project Principal Investigator's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism-funded longitudinal study of drinking behavior in a 2000 college freshman population (known as the Brain and Alcohol Research in College Students study (BARCS)). The age of these subjects is a valuable one at which to capture the transition from harmful use to abuse/dependence. This project explores the effects of memantine in a double-blind, randomized, counterbalanced manner on alcoholism risk-relevant tasks. More specifically, this project studies functional MRI tasks related to different aspects of reward and/or impulsivity-related behavior in different contexts, compares the underlying neural circuitry across tasks, and uses a pharmacologic probe of the glutamatergic system to examine NMDA/DA interactions. The combined measures provide the opportunity to advance our understanding of specific aspects of brain function related to familial alcoholism vulnerability in an already well-characterized population as some members evolve into alcohol abuse. In addition to conventional within-task analyses, functional network connectivity and allied approaches will be used to examine brain networks across tasks. The investigators will study adult male and female subjects in equal numbers who are either offspring of an alcoholic parent or are FHN matched controls. The investigators will recruit and assess a total of 84 (42 FHP and 42 matched FHN) subjects between the ages of 18-21 years on initial BARCS contact. The investigators will use 4 cognitive tasks during the functional MRI (fMRI) which include: 1) a Monetary Incentive Delay Task that distinguishes networks engaged in motivational (anticipation) and consummatory (outcome) components of reward processing; 2) a Go/No-Go Task that measures the ability to inhibit response to a pre-potent stimulus; 3) an Alcohol Cue Reactivity Task that examines Nucleus Accumbens response to alcohol-related versus matched soft drink stimuli; and 4) a Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer (PIT) Task that dissects a component of the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) Task, and provides an imaging assay of a transfer-like process that can be related to real-world drinking behavior, thus informing upon and extending the key findings from CTNA-2.

Examination of the effect of GET 73 on alcohol pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (intoxication and sedation)and safety profile in alcohol-dependent individuals.To evaluate whether GET 73, as compared to placebo, results in diminished cue-reactivity responses to alcohol cues in terms of urge to drink during the cue reactivity session and results in lower quantity of alcohol consumed during an alcohol self-administration session.

Considering the high comorbidity between alcohol use disorders and emotional problems, there is currently a need for accessible, integrated treatments designed to target both disorders simultaneously. Evidence suggests that the combined use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Motivational Interviewing (MI) may be effective at reducing the combined symptoms of the two disorders. However, much of the empirical work has focused on testing the usefulness of CBT/MI for alcohol misuse and comorbid depression, and the majority of these studies involve in-person treatment. Therefore, additional empirical research is required to determine the efficacy of combined CBT and MI for alcohol use and both anxiety and depression using an online intervention. This may help inform future treatments in this domain, and potentially be able to inform the development of online, accessible interventions for this population. Participants (N = 214) with elevated levels of alcohol use and emotional problems will be recruited from Central and Eastern Canada. Participants will be randomly assigned to either the treatment group (i.e., combined CBT and MI), or the psycho-educational control group. Individuals in the treatment group will be given 8-weeks to work through 12 online modules. Throughout the modules, participants will identify goals related to alcohol use and mood, learn strategies to cope with alcohol cravings, triggers, and social pressures, and learn how to prevent relapse. Modules will also include content designed to target anxiety and depression, focusing on strategies designed to help reduce negative thinking and worry, increase behavioural activation, and increase self-care (e.g., relaxation techniques, sleep hygiene). Participants randomly assigned to the control (i.e., psycho-education) condition will receive links to websites that provide general psychoeducation about alcohol and mental illness. All participants will complete online assessment measures at baseline, at the end of treatment, and at follow-up approximately 4 months later) in order to assess the efficacy of the treatment. At the end of the study, individuals in the control group will be given full access to the treatment.