Trial reportJournal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)2012
Guanfacine effects on stress, drug craving and prefrontal activation in cocaine dependent individuals: preliminary findings.
Trial report in Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England), 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 78 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
78 citing papers in PubMed, 113 citations in OpenAlex.
- Guanfacine extended-release for cannabis use disorder: a pilot feasibility trial.The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse · 2020Trial
- Using ecological momentary assessment to examine the relationship between craving and affect with opioid use in a clinical trial of clonidine as an adjunct medication to buprenorphine treatment.The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse · 2018Trial
- Clonidine Maintenance Prolongs Opioid Abstinence and Decouples Stress From Craving in Daily Life: A Randomized Controlled Trial With Ecological Momentary Assessment.The American journal of psychiatry · 2015Trial
- Impact of acute guanfacine administration on stress and cue reactivity in cocaine-dependent individuals.The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse · 2015Trial
- Guanfacine enhances inhibitory control and attentional shifting in early abstinent cocaine-dependent individuals.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2015Trial
- A translational investigation targeting stress-reactivity and prefrontal cognitive control with guanfacine for smoking cessation.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2015Trial
- Yohimbine administration and cue-reactivity in cocaine-dependent individuals.Psychopharmacology · 2014Trial
- Sex differences in guanfacine effects on drug craving and stress arousal in cocaine-dependent individuals.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2014Trial
- Assessment of safety, cardiovascular and subjective effects after intravenous cocaine and lofexidine.Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry · 2014Trial
- The effects of exogenous progesterone on drug craving and stress arousal in cocaine dependence: impact of gender and cue type.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2013Trial
- Alpha-2 Adrenergic Agonists Reduce Heavy Alcohol Drinking and Improve Cognitive Performance in Mice.eNeuro · 2026Article
- Cocaine Cues Used in Experimental Research: A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Resting-state EEG power and machine-learning classification in adult males with gambling disorder.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Laboratory and Real-World Experimental Approaches to Understanding Alcohol Relapse.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- A stratified precision medicine trial targeting αNature. Mental health · 2025Article
- Stress and substance use disorders: risk, relapse, and treatment outcomes.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2024Review
- Brain correlates and functional connectivity linking stress, autonomic dysregulation, and alcohol motivation.Neurobiology of stress · 2024Article
- Anxiety and dysautonomia symptoms in patients with a NaClinical autonomic research : official journal of the Clinical Autonomic Research Society · 2024Article
- Therapeutics for Substance-Using Women: The Need to Elucidate Sex-Specific Targets for Better-Tailored Treatments.Handbook of experimental pharmacology · 2023Article
- Pharmacological Treatments for Cocaine Craving: What Is the Way Forward? A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2022Review
18 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Cocaine dependence is associated with increased stress and drug cue-induced craving and physiological arousal but decreased prefrontal activity to emotional and cognitive challenge. As these changes are associated with relapse risk, we investigated the effects of α2 receptor agonist guanfacine on these processes. Twenty-nine early abstinent treatment-seeking cocaine dependent individuals were randomly assigned to either daily placebo or guanfacine (up to 3 mg) for four weeks. In a laboratory experiment, all patients were exposed to three 10-min guided imagery conditions (stress/stress, drug cue/drug cue, stress/drug cue), one per day, consecutively in a random, counterbalanced order. Subjective craving, anxiety and arousal as well as cardiovascular output were assessed repeatedly. Brain response to stress, drug cue and relaxing imagery was also assessed during a functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) imaging session. In the current study, guanfacine was found to be safe and well-tolerated. Lower basal heart rate and blood pressure was observed in the guanfacine versus placebo group. Guanfacine lowered stress and cue-induced nicotine craving and cue-induced cocaine craving, anxiety and arousal. The guanfacine group also showed increased medial and lateral prefrontal activity following stress and drug cue exposure compared with placebo. Data suggest further exploration of guanfacine is warranted in terms of its potential for reducing stress-induced and cue-induced drug craving and arousal.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.