Enhancing Prospective Thinking in Early Recovery (NERF) (NERF)

Enhancing Prospective Thinking in Early Recovery

The goal of this clinical trial is to test the prosocial effects of personally-relevant, high-intensity episodic future-thinking (EFT) cues in alcohol use disorder persons and related brain mechanisms. The main question[s] this trial aims to answer are:

Will high-intensity EFT cues will produce greater delayed reward preference than low-intensity cues? Will high-intensity EFT cues effect greater treatment-seeking interest? Will high-intensity EFT cues elicit greater response in regions for prospective thinking during delay discounting (vs. low-intensity) Will nucleus accumbens-precuneus resting connectivity correlate with behavioral SS? Will the novel behavioral SS decision-making task activate the nucleus accumbens? Researchers will compare the experimental (high-intensity group) and control (low-intensity) groups to see if there are differences in the results for the questions outlined above.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Alcohol Use Disorder
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: High-Intensity Cue; Behavioral: Low-Intensity Cue

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 58
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Indiana
    • Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, 46202
      • Indiana University School of Medicine - Goodman Hall

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Abstinence between 30 days ≤ 1 year
• Verbal endorsement of commitment to recovery
• English comprehension

Exclusion Criteria:

• Unstable medical disorders
• Outside the age range of 18-60
• Habitual substance or alcohol use
• Smell/taste disorders
• Unstable psychiatric conditions

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: High-Intensity; Participants will receive high-intensity episodic future-thinking cue images, and high-intensity episodic recent-thinking cue images during an MRI decision-making task.	Behavioral: High-Intensity Cue; Participants in the high-intensity group will receive high-intensity image cues that represent self-reported events they did on the previous day and self-reported events they look forward to in the future.
Active Comparator: Low-Intensity (Control); Participants will receive low-intensity episodic future-thinking cue images, and low-intensity episodic recent-thinking cue images during an MRI decision-making task.	Behavioral: Low-Intensity Cue; Participants in the low-intensity group will receive low-intensity image cues that represent self-reported events they did on the previous day and self-reported events they look forward to in the future.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Increase Prospective Thinking	High-intensity episodic future-thinking image cues will increase prospective thinking.	[Time Frame: Study Day Visit (Day 1)]
Delayed Rewards	High-intensity episodic future-thinking image cues will change preference for delayed rewards, which will be measured using a behavioral delayed discounting task.	[Time Frame: Study Day Visit (Day 1)]

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Indiana University
• Collaborators: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Brandon G Oberlin, PhD, Indiana University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 31, 2023
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 31, 2025
• Study Completion (Actual): July 31, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 21, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 21, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): February 28, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 26, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 25, 2025
• Last Verified: March 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders; Chemically-Induced Disorders; Alcohol-Related Disorders; Alcoholism
• Other Study ID Numbers: 1805574553; Aims 11-13; 1R21AA029760-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: The IPD will be shared in accordance with the National Institutes of Health National Data Archive requirements and upon the consent of the study participant.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Data will be shared at the specified submission deadlines assigned by the National Institutes of Health (typically every April or October). Data will be available upon the discretion of the National Institutes of Health.
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: No individually identifiable participant data will be submitted to the National Data Archive. All collected participant data is de-identified, and will be made available for other researchers to use upon requests submitted through the National Data Archive portal, and approval from the principal investigator.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; ANALYTIC_CODE

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No