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Terminated Not applicable Interventional Accepts healthy volunteers

Electroretinogram: a New Human Biomarker for Smoking Cessation Treatment

ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03213418

Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03213418. 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 3, 2026, 9:39 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.

This project aims to develop electroretinogram as a new putative marker for dopamine release, and as a predictor of treatment response among patients seeking treatment for smoking cessation. Tobacco smoking continues to be a major public health challenge. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter released in the brain. Several lines of evidence suggest that dopamine release deficit in the brain is involved in the development and maintenance of nicotine dependence. The investigators hypothesize that smokers who do not have a deficit in dopamine release will more readily respond to behavioral treatment for smoking cessation, and in particular, financial incentives contingent on abstinence (Contingency Management). Previous pilot data suggest electroretinogram (ERG), which records electrical signals from the retina in response to light, is a clinically accessible correlate to dopamine release in the brain. The project proposes an ERG-based biomarker, and a pilot clinical trial to apply this biomarker to personalize smoking cessation treatment. This clinically tractable biomarker of central dopamine release may have a large number of future applications in the diagnosis and treatment of other mental illnesses and substance use disorders. The study will recruit normal controls and smokers, measure ERG before and after a standard dose of oral immediate release methylphenidate. Smokers will undergo a 12-week standardized treatment course of CM. The investigators will test whether smoking status and the response to CM are correlated to changes in ERG in response to methylphenidate challenge.

Study identification

NCT ID
NCT03213418
Recruitment status
Terminated
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Not applicable
Enrollment
11 participants

Conditions and interventions

Eligibility (public fields only)

Age range
18 Years to 55 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
Jan 31, 2018
Primary completion
Oct 31, 2022
Completion
Nov 30, 2022
Last update posted
Jan 4, 2023

2018 – 2022

United States locations

U.S. sites
1
U.S. states
1
U.S. cities
1
Facility City State ZIP Site status
NYSPI, STARS Clinic, 3 Columbus Circle, suite 1408, 14th Floor New York New York 10019

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 NCT03213418, 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 Jan 4, 2023 · Synced Sep 3, 2026

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Open the official record

The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT03213418 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.

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