Cocaine-induced Place Preference using Virtual Reality

描述（由申请人提供）：本实验的目的是使用虚拟现实来建立人类对可卡因的位置偏好。具体来说，我们将研究在两种不同的虚拟现实环境中使用可卡因后人类偏好的变化。一旦建立了使用虚拟现实研究药物使用的背景效应的基础，我们就可以提出第二阶段研究，研究各种药物如何阻止获得和/或检索药物获得地点的偏好。此外，我们将利用当前实验的结果来设计第二阶段的研究，这些研究使用功能性磁共振成像来确定涉及各种药物使用和滥用的大脑回路。 拟议研究的具体目标如下： 1)以确定人类是否会在虚拟环境中对可卡因表现出条件性位置偏好。 2)确定生理测量（例如心率和皮肤电反应）是否表明在先前与可卡因配对的无药物环境中唤醒增加。这是一种非语言的唤醒方式。 3)为了确定渴望的口头测量，视觉焦虑量表（VAS）是否会表明受试者在先前与可卡因配对的无药物环境中对可卡因表现出更大的渴望。 4)确定可卡因依赖者是否表现出更强的地方偏好，更强的生理措施，更高的渴望措施比可卡因的娱乐用户。

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.