Recruiting

Craving & Valuation

Sponsor:

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Code:

NCT06440577

Conditions

Decision Making

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Audio-visual stimuli (Neutral-Relaxing)

Audio-visual stimuli (Drug)

Audio-visual stimuli (Non-Food)

Audio-visual stimuli (Food)

Study Details

Brief summary:

Craving is the strong desire for something, such as for substances in drug addiction and food or other activities in everyday life. Recent work suggests craving can influence how people make decisions and assign value to choice options available to them, yet the neural mechanisms underlying these interactions between craving and valuation remain unknown. To address this, this study uses cognitive decision-making tasks that measure how much individuals will pay (from a study endowment) to have everyday consumer items or snack foods when they crave something specific (opioids or a specific snack, respectively). First, the study will identify the neural mechanisms for how drug craving (craving for opioids) interacts with valuation for consumer items that have associations with drug use or not in people receiving treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). This will be evaluated in the activity patterns and interactions among brain regions involved in craving and value assignment during decision-making. Then, the study will examine for parallel mechanisms for how food craving (craving for a specific snack) interacts with valuation for snack food items that have similar features to the craved snack or not in people receiving treatment for OUD and non-psychiatric community control participants.

Conditions

Decision Making

Study ID

NCT06440577

Start date

Jun 18, 2024

Status verified date

Jun, 2026

Completion date

Dec, 2027

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Dec, 2027

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • At least 18 years of age
  • Willingness to follow study requirements, as evidenced by an ability to provide written informed consent and read, understand, and complete the study procedures
  • Minimum of 6th grade reading level

Additional inclusion criteria for participants with OUD:

  • Primary diagnosis of OUD encompassing heroin and/or painkiller use
  • Receiving medications for OUD treatment on an outpatient basis
  • At least 12-month history of opioid use

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Unable to speak or read English
  • Active psychosis or mania
  • Current or past schizophrenia diagnosis
  • History of intellectual disability or developmental or neurological disorder, seizures or epilepsy, or loss consciousness lasting more than 30 minutes
  • Severe medical conditions requiring hospitalization or that, in the opinion of the study staff could compromise study participation
  • MRI contraindications (claustrophobia, nonremovable piercings, certain metal in the body etc.) or pregnancy

Additional exclusion criteria for community control participants:

  • Positive urine drug screen
  • Current or past problematic substance use other than nicotine, and alcohol abuse confined to college or military service
  • Current or past bipolar disorder diagnosis
  • Use of central nervous system medications within the past 6 weeks (e.g., antidepressants, Ritalin)

Study Design

Enrollment

160 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Non randomized

Intervention Model

Single group

Primary purpose

Basic Science

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Consumer Items Willingness-to-Pay Task

Men and women with OUD receiving medications for OUD treatment will complete a decision-making task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in which they indicate their willingness-to-pay for everyday consumer items that have associations with drug use or not. Interleaved with blocks of the task, participants will briefly observe stimuli that can produce a change in their psychological state and drug craving, via two psychological/behavioral interventions: Audio-visual stimuli (Neutral-Relaxing) and Audio-visual stimuli (Drug).

experimental: Snack Foods Willingness-to-Pay Task

Men and women with OUD receiving medications for OUD treatment and control participants from the community will complete a decision-making task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in which they indicate their willingness-to-pay for snack food items that vary in their features (savory, sweet, etc.). Interleaved with blocks of the task, participants will briefly observe stimuli that can produce a change in their psychological state and food craving, via two psychological/behavioral interventions: Audio-visual stimuli (Non-Food) and Audio-visual stimuli (Food).

Interventions

Audio-visual stimuli (Neutral-Relaxing)

Audio instruction for participant to allow themselves to experience their feelings followed by 3-min passive viewing of images of neutral everyday objects (e.g., tools, dirt) and their use (construction, gardening).

Audio-visual stimuli (Drug)

Audio instruction for participant to allow themselves to experience their feelings followed by 3-min passive viewing of images of drug paraphernalia (e.g., syringe, tourniquet, heroin) and preparation.

Audio-visual stimuli (Non-Food)

Audio instruction for participant to focus their attention on the experimenter followed by 3-min audio-guided viewing of the experimenter opening/unwrapping an everyday object (e.g., box of crayons) and taking out its contents.

Audio-visual stimuli (Food)

Audio instruction for participant to focus their attention on the experimenter followed by 3-min audio-guided viewing of the experimenter opening/unwrapping a snack (e.g., chocolate bar, bag of chips) and taking out its contents.

Primary outcome measure

  • Willingness-to-pay [ Time Frame: during the task ]
  • fMRI-BOLD activity measured during willingness-to-pay decisions [ Time Frame: during the task ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Anna Konova, PhD

732-235-4335anna.konova@rutgers.edu

Locations

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Recruiting

Piscataway, New Jersey, United States, 08854

More Information

Sponsor

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Last update posted

Jun 4, 2026

Last verified

Jun, 2026

Keywords

  • Craving
  • Decision Making
  • Opioid Use Disorder
  • Dietary Choice

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey on 2026-06-04.