Imaging GABAergic/Glutamatergic Drugs in Bipolar Alcoholics Alcoholics

• Status: Recruiting
• Trial end date: 2022-04-30
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

The proposed 3-week, double-blind, crossover, proof of concept study aims to manipulate neurochemical dysfunctions characteristic of individuals with co-occurring BD and AUD (i.e., abnormally low prefrontal GABA and glutamate), using medications that have been shown to normalize cortical GABA (i.e., gabapentin) and glutamate (i.e., NAC) levels in past research, and to evaluate medication-related changes in response inhibition and alcohol cue-reactivity fMRI tasks as well as drinking and mood in individuals with AUD+BD.

• Phase: Phase 2
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Medical University of South Carolina
• Collaborators: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA); National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Treatments: Acetylcysteine; Gabapentin; gamma-Aminobutyric Acid; N-monoacetylcystine

Criteria

Inclusion:

• Meets DSM-V diagnostic criteria for Bipolar Disorder

• Using at least one mood stabilizing medication

• Meets diagnostic criteria Alcohol Use Disorder, with active drinking in the past month.

Exclusion:

• Serious medical or non-inclusionary psychiatric disease

• Concomitant use of benzodiazepine medications or any medications hazardous if taken with gabapentin/N-acetylcysteine

• History of clinically significant brain injury

• Presence of non-MRI safe material, or clinically significant claustrophobia.