Effects of Nimodipine on Alcohol Drinking

Summary

This is a randomized placebo-controlled trial (RCT). Participants will be non-treatment seeking adults, 21-50 years of age, with Alcohol Use Disorders. All will participate in two alcohol drinking paradigm (ADP) sessions separated by at least 3 days at The Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit (CNRU). Participants will stay overnight and receive nimodipine (90 mg/dose) or placebo every six hours during an 18-hour period prior to each ADP. MEG and/or EEG data will be collected before the first dose and after the third dose of nimodipine (NIM) or placebo (PLA). Adverse events will be closely monitored during this period. During the ADP participants will receive a priming dose of alcohol followed by a one-hour monitoring period. This will be followed by three one-hour self-administration periods; during each hour they will be able to choose between four drinks or monetary equivalents of these drinks (total of 12 drinks over three hours). ADP outcomes will include number of drinks consumed, alcohol craving, mood changes and alcohol effects, physiological measures (heart rate, blood pressure), as well as breath alcohol levels. Investigators anticipate having to recruit up to 40 participants to achieve 20 completers.

Timeline

Start

2026-09-01

Primary completion

2032-06-30

Completion

2032-06-30

Publications

• Background Krupitsky EM, Burakov AM, Romanova TN, Grinenko NI, Grinenko AY, Fletcher J, Petrakis IL, Krystal JH. Attenuation of ketamine effects by nimodipine pretreatment in recovering ethanol dependent men: psychopharmacologic implications of the interaction of NMDA and L-type calcium channel antagonists. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2001 Dec;25(6):936-47. doi: 10.1016/S0893-133X(01)00346-3.
• Background Donoghue T, Haller M, Peterson EJ, Varma P, Sebastian P, Gao R, Noto T, Lara AH, Wallis JD, Knight RT, Shestyuk A, Voytek B. Parameterizing neural power spectra into periodic and aperiodic components. Nat Neurosci. 2020 Dec;23(12):1655-1665. doi: 10.1038/s41593-020-00744-x. Epub 2020 Nov 23.
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• Background Freeman WJ, Rogers LJ, Holmes MD, Silbergeld DL. Spatial spectral analysis of human electrocorticograms including the alpha and gamma bands. J Neurosci Methods. 2000 Feb 15;95(2):111-21. doi: 10.1016/s0165-0270(99)00160-0.
• Background Chowdhury RA, Zerouali Y, Hedrich T, Heers M, Kobayashi E, Lina JM, Grova C. MEG-EEG Information Fusion and Electromagnetic Source Imaging: From Theory to Clinical Application in Epilepsy. Brain Topogr. 2015 Nov;28(6):785-812. doi: 10.1007/s10548-015-0437-3. Epub 2015 May 28.
• Background Chowdhury RA, Pellegrino G, Aydin U, Lina JM, Dubeau F, Kobayashi E, Grova C. Reproducibility of EEG-MEG fusion source analysis of interictal spikes: Relevance in presurgical evaluation of epilepsy. Hum Brain Mapp. 2018 Feb;39(2):880-901. doi: 10.1002/hbm.23889. Epub 2017 Nov 21.
• Background Cortes-Briones J, Skosnik PD, Mathalon D, Cahill J, Pittman B, Williams A, Sewell RA, Ranganathan M, Roach B, Ford J, D'Souza DC. Delta9-THC Disrupts Gamma (gamma)-Band Neural Oscillations in Humans. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2015 Aug;40(9):2124-34. doi: 10.1038/npp.2015.53. Epub 2015 Apr 24.
• Background De Clercq W, Vergult A, Vanrumste B, Van Paesschen W, Van Huffel S. Canonical correlation analysis applied to remove muscle artifacts from the electroencephalogram. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2006 Dec;53(12 Pt 1):2583-7. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2006.879459.
• Background De Vos M, Ries S, Vanderperren K, Vanrumste B, Alario FX, Van Huffel S, Burle B. Removal of muscle artifacts from EEG recordings of spoken language production. Neuroinformatics. 2010 Jun;8(2):135-50. doi: 10.1007/s12021-010-9071-0.
• Background Tadel F, Baillet S, Mosher JC, Pantazis D, Leahy RM. Brainstorm: a user-friendly application for MEG/EEG analysis. Comput Intell Neurosci. 2011;2011:879716. doi: 10.1155/2011/879716. Epub 2011 Apr 13.
• Background Gao R, Penzes P. Common mechanisms of excitatory and inhibitory imbalance in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders. Curr Mol Med. 2015;15(2):146-67. doi: 10.2174/1566524015666150303003028.

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