An interventional study of Presentation of alcohol-related and neutral stimuli in Drinking, Binge, sponsored by Rochester Institute of Technology. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 25 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-10-27.
Sponsored by Rochester Institute of Technology · Not applicable, Interventional, and Basic science
Binge drinking is common among young adults and is related to many negative health outcomes including blackouts, risky sex, drunk driving, alcohol use disorder, and liver disease. Understanding whether there are differences in how binge drinkers respond to alcohol-related cues and whether this is related to craving is important for improving interventions and treatments. The proposed study will compare behavioral and neural processing of alcohol and non-alcohol cues in a single sensory modality (vision) with that of cues presented in multiple sensory modalities (vision, touch, and smell) with varying degrees of realistic appearance (images, virtual reality, real objects). Participants will answer questionnaires related to their physical and mental health and recent alcohol and drug use. Those eligible for the study will complete two in-person lab sessions. During both sessions they will be asked to view a series of cues which will include images on a computer screen, objects presented in virtual reality, or real objects. Sometimes these will be presented just visually and other times they will be combined with the presentation of specific smells or an object to touch. Some of these cues will be alcohol-related and others will be neutral (non-alcohol-related). Brainwave activity, as measured by the electroencephalogram (EEG), and reports of alcohol craving will be collected during these sessions. It is expected that brainwave activity will be greatest in response to multisensory cues compared to that in response unisensory (visual only) cues. It is also expected that young adults with a recent history of binge drinking will show the greatest brainwave activity in response to multisensory alcohol cues compared to social drinkers. Binge drinkers will also report more alcohol craving in response to multisensory alcohol cues compared to social drinkers. It is anticipated that brainwave responses will increase as the level of realism of the cues increases. Binge drinkers will also show stronger brainwave and craving responses to multisensory alcohol cues presented as real objects. Finally, binge drinkers will show lessened brain and craving responses when multisensory cues do not match compared to social drinkers. For example, if a photo shows an alcoholic drink but the smell presented is not alcohol related, binge drinkers will show less attentive brain activity toward those mismatched cues. Given that most alcohol cues in daily life are experienced across multiple senses simultaneously, results of this research will provide a better understanding of the relation between alcohol cue processing and craving, and will inform development of more effective programs for decreasing young adult risky drinking behavior.
71 studies on the registry are indexed under Binge Drinking; 20 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 100 is below the median of 120 across 64 interventional studies indexed under Binge Drinking.
Browse Binge Drinking studies →Rochester Institute of Technology is the lead sponsor of 6 studies on the registry; 4 are open to participants now.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Participants ages 18 to 25 with a history of binge drinking (at least 2 episodes of 5+ standard drinks per episode for males/4+ standard drinks per episode for females) in the past month and at least 4+/3+ (males/females) score on the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test.
Other: Presentation of alcohol-related and neutral stimuli
Participants ages 18 to 25 who report drinking alcohol at least once in the past month but no current history of a binge pattern (i.e., 2 or fewer drinks per episode) AND score less than 4/3 (males/females) on the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test.
Other: Presentation of alcohol-related and neutral stimuli
Participants will complete two tasks in which they will be presented with unisensory visual and multisensory stimuli combining visual, olfactory, and/or tactile sensory modalities. Stimulus content will be either alcohol-related or neutral (non-alcohol-related). Additionally in the Passive Viewing Task, stimuli will vary on the degree of visual realism. Specifically, participants will be presented with two-dimensional images, three-dimensional virtual reality simulations, and real physical objects. In the second task, a Cross-modal Stroop-like task, participants will be asked to press a button to indicate whether the presented stimuli match in terms of the content presented in each sensory modality. Electroencephalographic (EEG) brain activity, eye movements, responses, and self-reported craving will be collected while participants complete the tasks.
Event-related Potential Amplitudes in Response to Alcohol and Neutral Cues
Amplitude (magnitude) of electrocortical activity assessed in response to alcohol-related and neutral cues presented either visually or in visual-olfactory or visual-tactile combinations.
Time frame: Baseline and follow-up (within 1 week)
Plan to share: No
From the registry record's own update history. This site started tracking changes on Sep 25, 2026; for anything earlier, see the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
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Rochester Institute of Technology