Cocaine-induced Place Preference using Virtual Reality

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this experiment is to use virtual reality to establish place preferences to cocaine in humans. Specifically, we will examine how human preferences change after administering cocaine in one of two distinct virtual reality environments. Once this groundwork is established for studying contextual effects on drug use using virtual reality, we can propose Stage II studies that examine how various medications block the acquisition and/or retrieval of preferences for places where drugs were obtained. In addition, we would use the results of the current experiment to design State II studies that use functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine the brain circuits involved in various types of drug use and abuse. The specific aims of the proposed research are as follows: 1) To determine whether humans will display a conditioned place preference to cocaine in a virtual environment. 2) To determine whether physiological measures (e.g. heart rate and galvanic skin response) will indicate increased arousal in a drug-free environment that was previously paired with cocaine. This serves as a nonverbal measure of arousal. 3) To determine whether a verbal measure of cravings, the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), will indicate that subjects show a greater craving for cocaine in a drug-free environment that was previously paired with cocaine. 4) To determine whether individuals who are cocaine-dependent show stronger place preferences, stronger physiological measures, and higher craving measures than individuals who are recreational users of cocaine.