Research Studies

The purpose of this research is to demonstrate a relationship between cortisol measured in hair, cortisol measured in saliva, and the results of self-reported psychological measures (questionnaires).

Protocol #: 20-0025

Location: Department Specific Free Standing Clinic

If you join the study, you will participate in two study sessions, which can be completed either in-person (at Anschutz Medical Campus, in Aurora, CO) or remotely - over the internet, over the course of 2 months. The first part of the study is the screening session. During this session, the research staff will conduct an interview with you and complete questionnaires about your medical and mental health history, and your mood. The second and last part of the study is the test session. During this session, you will complete surveys about your mood, and you will rate 160 digital images. Forty of those images will be pleasant, 40 will be unpleasant, 40 will be neutral, and 40 will be erotic. You will rate these images on scales of how pleasant/unpleasant and of how arousing/non-arousing you find these images.

To investigate ratings of digital images across the female menstrual cycle

Protocol #: 19-2872

Locations: Department Specific Free Standing Clinic; University of Colorado, Boulder

Protocol #: 19-1896

Location: Childrens Hospital Colorado

This trial lays the foundation for a preliminary test of efficacy of IBT on irritability by establishing IBT's neurocognitive treatment targets: hostile interpretation bias and response in the neural threat-learning system. The design will test whether active relative to sham IBT shifts the indifference point towards more benign judgments. Neural response to active versus sham IBT will be measured in half the sample.

Hostile interpretation bias may be a feature of severe, chronic irritability in children, one of the most common psychiatric symptoms of childhood. Interpretation bias training (IBT) is a computer-based training program that may reduce irritability in youths. This trial lays the groundwork for a test IBT on irritability. This trial lays the foundation for a preliminary test of efficacy of IBT on irritability by establishing IBT's neurocognitive treatment targets: hostile interpretation bias and response in the neural threat-learning system. The design is a single-blinded, randomized controlled trial of IBT on its targets. The study will have four arms, with 25 participants in each arm for all four conditions of training (active versus sham) and scanning (in MRI or out of MRI scanner). During IBT, participants judge as happy or angry facial expressions which are on a continuum between happy and angry. The point at which judgments shift from predominantly happy to angry on this continuum is the indifference point. During training feedback encourages no change in the indifference point or a change in the indifference point towards more happy judgments of ambiguous faces. A shift in indifference point towards more benign judgments is interpreted as a reduction in hostile interpretation. The design will test whether active relative to sham IBT shifts the indifference point towards more benign judgments. Neural response to active versus sham IBT will be measured in half the sample.

Protocol #: 17-0464

Location: Childrens Hospital Colorado

Few medications are currently Food & Drug Administration (FDA)-approved for the treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), and those that are have, on average, modest effects on drinking. Precision medicine research has explored whether patient-level variables, such as genetic variation, may identify subgroups of individuals with larger medication effects, but few findings have been replicated. A promising novel medication for AUD is brexpiprazole (BREX), a serotonin/dopamine activity modulator (SDAM). This study will evaluate the effects of two doses of BREX, relative to placebo, among non-treatment-seeking individuals with AUD, and will test whether DAT1 genotype influences these effects. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) will be used to explore whether BREX effects on brain activation associated with cognitive control or elicited by alcohol cues accounts for its effects on drinking. If the study hypotheses are supported, BREX may represent a novel pharmacogenetic treatment for AUD.

The overarching hypothesis of this proposal is that brexpiprazole (BREX) (2 or 4 mg/day), relative to placebo, will reduce alcohol consumption and modulate the neural substrates of moderate-severe Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), and that genotype at a variable number tandem repeat polymorphism (VNTR) in the DAT1/SLC6A3 gene will predict BREX effects. Participants will be non-treatment-seeking Alcohol Use Disorder individuals, and will be prospectively randomized to medication on the basis of their DAT1 VNTR genotype. Since BREX affects both cortical and striatal neurophysiology, we will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test its effects on cortical (right inferior frontal gyrus; rIFG) activation associated with response inhibition and on striatal activation elicited by alcohol cues, and will explore whether either of these measures mediates BREX effects on drinking in the natural environment vs. a bar-lab setting, which may reflect different aspects of lost control over drinking.

Protocol #: 19-1658

Locations: Department Specific Free Standing Clinic; University of Colorado Hospital

Protocol #: 18-1740

Locations: Anschutz Health and Wellness; UCD Anschutz Health & Wellness Center; University of Colorado Hospital

Protocol #: 13-1495

Locations: Anschutz Health and Wellness; UCD Anschutz Health & Wellness Center; University of Colorado Hospital