Understanding Effects of Cannabis Use and Abstinence on Neural Glutamate Homeostasis

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Trial end date: 2028-02-28
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

This study will be the first in vivo human multimodal neuroimaging study exploring the relationship between mGluR5 availability (PET), neural oscillations (EEG), and cognitive function in people with CUD. The goal is to test the overall hypothesis that mGluR5 availability is higher in people with CUD compared with HC. In Aim 1, the investigators will determine differences in mGluR5 availability between people with CUD and HC in the fronto-limbic brain circuit. Aim 2 examines the associations between mGluR5 availability, CUD severity, neural oscillations, and cognitive function in CUD subjects. Aim 3 will determine how prolonged abstinence from chronic cannabis use affects mGluR5 availability, neural oscillations, and cognitive function in CUD subjects.

• Phase: Early Phase 1
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Yale University
• Collaborator: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

HC and CUD Group:

• Voluntary, written, informed consent

• Physically healthy by medical history, physical, neurological, ECG and laboratory exams

• No personal or first-degree relative history of psychiatric disorders (outside of cannabis use for CUD group)

• Full scale and verbal IQs > 80 (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition; WAIS-IV).

CUD group:

• Cannabis use disorder as determined by DSM-5 structured interviews

• Urine toxicology evidence of cannabinoid use

HC group:

• lifetime cannabis exposure less than 20 times

• no cannabis use in the past 2 years by self-report

• a negative urine drug screen.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Other substance use disorder within 1 year, except for nicotine

• Another primary DSM-5 Axis I major psychiatric disorder (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, etc.) per SCID-5

• Urine toxicology results positive for other drugs such as opiates / opiate metabolites (e.g., methadone, buprenorphine, etc.)

• A history of significant medical (cardiac, infectious, metabolic) or neurological illness (e.g., cerebrovascular disease, traumatic brain injury)

• A history of seizures/epilepsy

• Current use of psychotropic and/or potentially psychoactive prescription medications

• Medical contraindications to MRI imaging (e.g., ferromagnetic implants/foreign bodies, claustrophobia, etc.)

• Pregnancy or breastfeeding (women).

• Subjects will be excluded for major medical or neurological illness or laboratories consistent with these illnesses or suggesting contraindication to PET or MR imaging