Trial reportAlcoholism, clinical and experimental research2020
Effects of Prazosin on Provoked Alcohol Craving and Autonomic and Neuroendocrine Response to Stress in Alcohol Use Disorder.
Trial report in Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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
23 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Yohimbine as a pharmacological probe for alcohol research: a systematic review of rodent and human studies.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Pooled it
- Moderation of Prazosin's Efficacy by Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms.The American journal of psychiatry · 2021Trial
- Prazosin-Related Reductions in Daily Craving Mediate Treatment-Related Daily Alcohol Use Outcomes in Alcohol Use Disorder.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Spironolactone and clinical outcomes in patients with alcohol use disorder and comorbid hypertension: a target trial emulation study.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Noradrenaline Modulates Central Amygdala GABA Transmission and Alcohol Drinking in Female Rats.Biological psychiatry · 2026Article
- Noradrenergic Mechanisms and Circuitry of Hyperkatifeia in Alcohol Use Disorder.Biological psychiatry · 2025Review
- Laboratory and Real-World Experimental Approaches to Understanding Alcohol Relapse.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- Insights into Overlapping Brain Networks for Anxiety and Alcohol Use Disorders.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- Cognitive and physiological impacts of psychotherapy incorporating human-equine interactions during substance withdrawal: A scoping review.Journal of equine rehabilitation · 2025Article
- A multi-omics Mendelian randomization study identifies new therapeutic targets for alcohol use disorder and problem drinking.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Sex- and estrous-related response patterns for alcohol depend critically on the level of compulsion-like challenge.Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry · 2024Article
- Sex differences in heart rate variability measures that predict alcohol drinking in rats.Addiction biology · 2024Article
- Testing pharmacotherapies for alcohol use disorder with cue exposure paradigms: A systematic review and quantitative synthesis of human laboratory trial methodology.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2023Review
- An ensemble recruited by αNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Article
- Chronic ethanol alters adrenergic receptor gene expression and produces cognitive deficits in male mice.Neurobiology of stress · 2023Article
- Tauopathy and alcohol consumption interact to alter locus coeruleus excitatory transmission and excitability in male and female mice.Alcohol (Fayetteville, N.Y.) · 2023Article
- Animal models of compulsion alcohol drinking: Why we love quinine-resistant intake and what we learned from it.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Review
- Toward personalized circuit-based closed-loop brain-interventions in psychiatry: using symptom provocation to extract EEG-markers of brain circuit activity.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2023Review
- Noradrenergic circuits and signaling in substance use disorders.Neuropharmacology · 2022Review
- Cardiovascular therapeutics: A new potential for anxiety treatment?Medicinal research reviews · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundChronic alcohol use results in changes to stress biology and autonomic arousal contributing to acute alcohol withdrawal symptoms, neuroendocrine tolerance of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis responses, high stress-induced craving, and risk of alcohol relapse. Thus, stress coping and recovery from alcohol during early abstinence may be jeopardized by such stress system dysfunction. Significant preclinical evidence suggests that noradrenergic disruption may contribute to these alcohol-related stress arousal changes and that alpha-1 adrenergic antagonists, such as prazosin, may normalize these stress system adaptations and reduce alcohol intake. Thus, we hypothesized that prazosin would reduce stress-induced craving and improve neuroendocrine and autonomic response to stress and alcohol cue exposure during early abstinence. We secondarily also assessed the role of lifetime anxiety disorders on these prazosin effects.
methodsForty inpatient treatment-seeking alcohol-dependent individuals were randomly assigned to receive placebo (n = 18) or 16 mg/d, T.I.D., prazosin (n = 22) in a double-blind manner, titrated over 2 weeks. In weeks 3 to 4 after achieving full dose, patients were exposed to 3 5-minute personalized guided imagery conditions (stress cue, alcohol cue, neutral/relaxing cue), on 3 consecutive days in a random, counterbalanced order. Alcohol craving, anxiety, heart rate, cortisol, and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) levels were assessed at baseline, following imagery and at repeated recovery timepoints.
resultsPrazosin reduced stress cue-induced alcohol craving (p < 0.05) and stress- and alcohol cue-induced anxiety (p < 0.05) and increased heart rate responses in all imagery conditions (p < 0.05). Prazosin lowered basal cortisol and ACTH (p's < 0.05) and attenuated stress cue-induced rises in cortisol (p < 0.05) versus placebo. Finally, in those without lifetime anxiety disorder, the placebo group showed stress- and alcohol cue-induced increases in cortisol (p's < 0.05), while the prazosin group did not.
conclusionsPrazosin may attenuate stress cue-induced alcohol craving and anxiety during early abstinence while improving adrenergic and stress system function, effects which are independent of a history of lifetime anxiety disorders.
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Registered trials
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