Trial reportAlcoholism, clinical and experimental research2016
The Effect of Varenicline on the Neural Processing of Fearful Faces and the Subjective Effects of Alcohol in Heavy Drinkers.
Trial report in Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Use of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to Test Pharmacotherapies for Alcohol Use Disorder: A Systematic Review.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2019Pooled it
- CBD attenuates amygdala response to negative emotional stimuli in individuals with alcohol use disorder - a randomized controlled trial.Psychopharmacology · 2026Trial
- Neural responses to reward, threat, and emotion regulation and transition to hazardous alcohol use.Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire) · 2024Article
- Alcohol and the Brain.Nutrients · 2021Review
- Delta Event-Related Oscillations Are Related to a History of Extreme Binge Drinking in Adolescence and Lifetime Suicide Risk.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- To Infuse or Ingest in Human Laboratory Alcohol Research.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2020Review
- High-risk social drinkers and heavy drinkers display similar rates of alcohol consumption.Addiction biology · 2020Article
- Interaction of Heavy Drinking Patterns and Depression Severity Predicts Efficacy of Quetiapine Fumarate XR in Lowering Alcohol Intake in Alcohol Use Disorder Patients.Substance abuse : research and treatment · 2020Article
- Family history of alcoholism and the human brain response to oral sucrose.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2018Article
- Alcohol and basal ganglia circuitry: Animal models.Neuropharmacology · 2017Review
- Varenicline Reduces Context-Induced Relapse to Alcohol-Seeking through Actions in the Nucleus Accumbens.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPharmacotherapies for alcohol use disorder have been shown to reduce hazardous drinking and improve overall health. The effect sizes for the effectiveness of these medications, however, are small, underscoring the need to expand the range of therapeutics and develop personalized treatment approaches. Recent studies have suggested that varenicline, an α4β2-nicotinic partial agonist widely used for smoking cessation, can help alcoholics reduce drinking, but the neurocognitive underpinnings of its effectiveness remain largely unexplored.
methodsIn this double-blind study, 32 heavy drinkers were randomized to receive varenicline (2 mg/d) or placebo. After 2 weeks of dosing, participants underwent functional MRI scans, during which they viewed images of faces with either neutral or fearful expressions at baseline and following an intravenous alcohol infusion to a target breath alcohol concentration of 80 mg%. Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response was analyzed with Analysis of Functional Neuroimaging software. Linear mixed-effects models were used to examine the effects of facial expression (fearful vs. neutral) and medication (placebo vs. varenicline) on BOLD response. The effect of medication on measures of subjective response to alcohol was also examined.
resultsResults indicated a significant facial expression-by-medication interaction in the left amygdala. The groups showed equivalent activation to neutral faces, but, whereas the placebo group showed increased activation to fearful faces, the varenicline group showed no change in activation. Amygdala activation to fearful faces correlated with number of drinks in the previous 90 days and Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale scores. There was no effect of varenicline on subjective response to alcohol.
conclusionsOur results indicate that varenicline may disrupt amygdala response to fearful faces in heavy drinkers. Further, amygdala activation correlated with alcohol consumption, suggesting that the effects of varenicline may be related to aspects of drinking behavior. These results suggest that amygdala response to fearful faces may be developed as a biomarker of the effectiveness of medications being developed for the treatment of alcohol use disorder.
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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.