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Completed Phase 2 Interventional Accepts healthy volunteers Results available

Neural Substrates of Emotion: Impact of Cocaine Dependence

ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT02682784

Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02682784. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.

ClinicalTrials.gov public records Last synced Sep 18, 2026, 4:33 AM EDT

Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.

Brief summary

Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.

Over one million individuals in the United States meet criteria for cocaine use disorders. Relapse rates are highest among cocaine-dependent (CD) populations. Social stress is a significant risk factor for relapse. Data from human neuroimaging studies suggest that "top-down" prefrontal cortical inhibition of amygdala activity controls emotional responses to social stimuli. A growing literature suggests that hypoactivity in the medial prefrontal cortex coupled with increases in amygdala activity underscore the vulnerability of CD individuals to relapse. Neuroimaging studies of corticolimbic network activity (functional connectivity) have been conducted in CD subjects at rest. Compared with healthy controls, CD subjects exhibited lower corticolimbic connectivity and the degree of corticolimbic uncoupling was associated with time to relapse. Studies measuring corticolimbic connectivity during exposure to a social stress task in CD subjects could provide critical insight into the neurobiologic mechanisms that underscore the sensitivity of CD individuals to social stress. Moreover interventions that improve corticolimbic connectivity in CD subjects may be effective therapeutic strategies for preventing relapse in CD populations. Oxytocin (OT) is an anxiolytic neuropeptide that attenuates amygdala responses to aversive social cues. In order to better understand the neurobiologic mechanisms that control emotion-related behavior in CD populations, we propose a double-blind placebo (PBO) controlled study using blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure (1) corticolimbic functional connectivity during the Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST) and (2) amygdala activity in response to an implicit facial affect recognition paradigm in groups of CD individuals (CD n=80) and healthy non-dependent controls (HC, n=80). Prior to the scanning session, participants will receive either intranasal OT (24 IU) or PBO spray (n=40 per treatment group). The order of the tasks will be counterbalanced.

Study identification

NCT ID
NCT02682784
Recruitment status
Completed
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase 2
Enrollment
138 participants

Conditions and interventions

Interventions

Drug

Eligibility (public fields only)

Age range
18 Years to 65 Years
Sex
All
Healthy volunteers
Accepts healthy volunteers

This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.

Study timeline

Start date
Jun 30, 2015
Primary completion
Jul 26, 2020
Completion
Jul 26, 2020
Last update posted
Oct 20, 2021

2015 – 2020

United States locations

U.S. sites
1
U.S. states
1
U.S. cities
1
Facility City State ZIP Site status
Medical University of South Carolina Charleston South Carolina 29403

Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.

About this trial record page

What this page shows
Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02682784, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
What this page does not do
No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
Where the data comes from
Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
Last refresh
Last update posted Oct 20, 2021 · Synced Sep 18, 2026

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Open the official record

The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT02682784 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.

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