Opioids and Social Support Enhanced Extinction Effects
Status:
Not yet recruiting
Trial end date:
2022-03-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
University of California, Los Angeles researchers will recruit healthy participants (age
18-35) to participate in a study examining whether the administration of naltrexone, an
opioid antagonist, eliminates the ability of social support figure reminders to enhance fear
extinction--a process during which a threatening cue is learned to not predict a negative or
threatening outcome (i.e., electric shock) by being repeatedly presented in the absence of
that outcome.
After undergoing an email screening, a telephone screening, an in lab screening, and a health
screening, 60 participants will be enrolled in the study. During the experiment, 30
participants will be administered naltrexone and 30 participants will be administered placebo
(both participants and experimenters will be blind to condition) before undergoing a fear
extinction procedure in which threatening cues--cues that predict electric shock--will be
paired with either an image of a social support figure (provided by participants) or a second
threatening cue. These pairings will be presented repeatedly in the absence of shock in order
for fear extinction to occur. Participants will return for a follow-up test to determine if
fear extinction was successful.