Afferent Neurocardiac Signals, Cue Reactivity, and Cognitive Control

Rutgers The State University of New Jersey

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Binge Drinking

Treatments: Behavioral: Resonance breathing; Behavioral: Low demand cognitive task

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05369169

Pro2021001073

Details and patient eligibility

About

Conscious attempts to regulate alcohol use are often undermined by automatic attention and arousal processes activated by alcohol cues, as well as by diminished ability to inhibit in-the-moment behaviors. The current study will examine whether a brief behavioral intervention of slow breathing paced at a resonance frequency of the cardiovascular system can interrupt automatic alcohol cue reactivity and enhance cognitive control in binge drinkers. Results from the proposed study may provide new prevention and intervention targets to interrupt unhealthy drinking behaviors.

Enrollment: 100 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 35 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Must report at least 2 binge drinking episodes in the past month
• Have normal or corrected-to-normal vision

Exclusion criteria

• History or presence of serious psychiatric disorders, neurological disorders, or head injury resulting in a loss of consciousness
• Presence of any serious medical condition
• Report of more than a few occasions (3-4) of illicit drug use, except for cannabis, in the preceding year

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Crossover Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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100 participants in 2 patient groups

Resonance paced breathing

Experimental group

Description:

Active resonance breathing task consisting of synchronizing breathing with a visual pacer (E-Z Air, Thought Technology, Ltd., Plattsburgh, NY) that moves up (inhale) and down (exhale) at the rate of 0.1 Hz (6 breaths per min)

Treatment:

Behavioral: Resonance breathing

Low demand vanilla control

Active Comparator group

Description:

A low-demand cognitive "vanilla" task wherein different colored rectangles are presented for 10 sec each, and participants are instructed to silently count the number of blue rectangles

Treatment:

Behavioral: Low demand cognitive task