An observational study in Alcohol-dependence, sponsored by University Hospital, Lille. Completed at 1 site in France. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 60 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2015-06-17.
Sponsored by University Hospital, Lille · Observational
Alcohol-dependence is the most widespread addiction in Western countries and leads to a wide range of impairments at cerebral and cognitive levels. It has also been showed that alcohol-dependence is associated with emotional disturbances, particularly for the decoding of emotional facial expressions (EFE). In view of the crucial role played by EFE to develop and maintain satisfactory interpersonal relations, this emotional processing impairment may have deleterious consequences on alcohol-dependent patient's social well-being, and this deficit is thus of particular clinical interest. Nevertheless, this deficit has up to now been evaluated only by means of experiments using paradigms with low ecological value (i.e. presentation of EFE in isolation and in the central vision field), while in the real life, emotional stimuli are most frequently appearing together with other emotional stimulations (particularly voices) and in the peripheral vision field. Moreover, the cerebral correlates of this emotional deficit are still to be determined.
The present study thus aims at exploring the Emotional Facial Expressions (EFE) decoding in alcoholism using a more ecological paradigm, based on peripheral presentation of emotional crossmodal stimuli (i.e. the simultaneous presentation of emotionally congruent face and voice).
Main aim: Determining the electrophysiological characteristics (latencies and amplitudes) of the event-related components elicited among recently detoxified alcohol-dependent participants, while performing an emotion-detection task on crossmodal stimuli (voices and/or faces) presented centrally or peripherally, and comparing these characteristics with those obtained among paired healthy participants.
Secondary objectives:
Methodology: Evaluation the event-related potentials elicited among alcohol-dependent and healthy participants while performing an emotion-detection task on unimodal (visual or auditory) or crossmodal (visuo-auditory) stimulations presented centrally or peripherally. Event-related potentials allow to monitor the electrical activity of the brain with high temporal resolution and to detect even minor neurocognitive restrictions. This cerebral measures will be completed by behavioral (reaction times and accuracy) and psychopathological measures.
No specific interventions assigned to the subjects of the study.
Evaluations: The room contains a panoramic screen (2.4 X 4 meters) covering a 180 degrees of visual angle. Participants will seat in a chair situated two meters away from the screen, in front of a table on which the response pad will be placed. Three projectors will display the visual stimulations, either centrally or lateralized (-12°, -24°on the left or +12°, +24° on the right). Headphones will be placed on participants' ears in order to display the auditory stimulations, either on both ears or lateralized (left or right ear), and presented separately (unimodal conditions) or simultaneously (crossmodal condition) with the visual stimuli. Visual stimuli, constructed using FaceGen 3.4 program, will be emotional faces (two males, two females) depicting happiness, anger or a neutral expression. Auditory stimuli (two males, two females), from a validated battery, will be emotional voices depicting happiness, anger or a neutral prosody and presented at a 70 decibels level. Crossmodal stimulations will be a combination of visual and auditory stimuli, congruent for gender and emotion. Experiment will be composed of 39 conditions: 3 stimulations (visual, auditory, visuo-auditory) X 3 emotions (anger, happiness, neutral) X 3/5 lateralisation (-24°, -12°, 0°, 12°, 24°). Each condition will be evaluated on the basis of 50 stimulations. Event-related potentials will be recorded during the whole experiment by means of a 128 electrodes cap placed on participant's head and connected with an amplifier (Advanced Neuro Technology, ANT) and a recording computer, synchronised with the stimulation system. Behavioral responses will be recorded by means of a response pad. Psychopathological measures will be conducted using validated questionnaires: State and trait anxiety (STAI A and B, Spielberger et al., 1983), depression (BDI, Beck et al., 1987), interpersonal problems (Horowitz et al. (1988)), evaluating the quantity and quality of the social interactions, and the integration in the family and relationship background and alexithymia (Bagby et al., 1994).
1,634 studies on the registry are indexed under Alcoholism; 329 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 80 is below the median of 180 across 176 observational studies indexed under Alcoholism.
Browse Alcoholism studies →University Hospital, Lille is the lead sponsor of 630 studies on the registry; 141 are open to participants now.
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All participants will be between 18 and 60 years of age, will be French-speaking and will present a normal or corrected-to-normal auditory and visual acuity.
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
Exclusion Criteria :
22 recently detoxified participants diagnosed as alcohol-dependant on the basis of DSM-IV criteria who will performed an emotion-detection task on unimodal (visual or auditory) or crossmodal (visuo-auditory) stimulations presented centrally or peripherally
22 healthy controls without any psychiatric or neurological diagnosis who will performed an emotion-detection task on unimodal (visual or auditory) or crossmodal (visuo-auditory) stimulations presented centrally or peripherally
brain electrical responses amplitudes and latencies
Differences in latencies, mainly the P3b wave, in milliseconds and differences in brain electrical responses amplitudes in millivolts, between the alcohol-dependent group and the healthy participants group.
Time frame: participants will be followed an average of 2 hours for the duration of experiment
reactions times
Differences in reactions times during the emotion-detection task between the two groups.
Time frame: participants will be followed an average of 2 hours for the duration of experiment
behavioural and psychopathological measures
Differences in anxiety level, psychopathology, interpersonal problems level, alexithymia level, measured by validated questionnaires.
Time frame: participants will be followed an average of 2 hours for the duration of experiment
percentage of correct answers
Differences in percentage of correct answers between the two groups.
Time frame: participants will be followed an average of 2 hours for the duration of experiment
This study is completed, as verified in Jun 2015. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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