The Use of Virtual Reality to Discover Objective Correlates of Alcohol Craving

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PROJECT SUMMARY The study of craving for alcohol and drugs is increasingly thought to be essential for understanding the pathogenesis and maintenance of addiction. However, valid and reliable methods for investigating this psychobiologic phenomenon are lacking. This study seeks to develop a novel, ecologically valid paradigm that capitalizes on the technological advances and realism of virtual reality (VR) to both induce alcohol craving, via presentation of realistic alcohol-related cues, and reliably assess alcohol craving, via measurement of potential craving correlates (attentional bias and spontaneous eye-blink rate [EBR]) and subjective reports. Following initial acceptability testing and optimization (n=15), three alcohol active and three neutral VR scenes will be administered to a sample comprised of low-moderate alcohol drinkers (n=50) and heavy alcohol drinkers (n=50). Eye-tracking (to establish attentional bias towards alcohol cues) and EBR will be continuously recorded during presentation of the scenes. Participants will then be followed for seven-days, via mobile assessment, and contacted by phone at day 30, to obtain self-report responses of subjective alcohol craving and alcohol use in their naturalistic environment. Thus, the specific aims of the proposed research are: (1) to develop an ecologically valid and immersive VR cue-reactivity paradigm that reliably induces alcohol craving, (2) test the feasibility, reliability, and utility of VR derived attentional bias as an objective craving correlate by comparing it against commonly used measures of subjective craving and attentional bias, and (3) examine the predictive utility of the objective correlates of alcohol craving acquired during the paradigm and subjective reports of alcohol craving and alcohol use during follow-up. The use of EBR as an objective craving correlate will also be investigated as an exploratory aim. Once fully developed and tested, this paradigm will have tremendous applications within basic science research on alcohol craving and within clinical science via providing a new platform to develop interventions that aim to reduce craving. Further, this project will advance our understanding of attentional bias and its utility as a predictive measure of alcohol craving and use.