Study will evaluate biomarkers and novel treatments for alcohol use disorder
Brett Ginsburg, PhD, director of the Biochemical Pharmacology Analytical Laboratory at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio), was selected as a performer with the Wellcome Leap Untangling Addiction program.
Wellcome Leap is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization founded by the Wellcome Trust. Through the Untangling Addiction program, the organization aims to bridge critical gaps in knowledge about substance use disorders and their treatment. Program goals are to develop scalable measures of individual addiction susceptibility, quantify addiction risk and progression while using prescription drugs, develop innovative treatments and quantifiably assess recovery with existing or new treatments to greatly reduce the risk of relapse.
The opioid crisis, the rise in new potentially addictive substances, along with a resurgence of cocaine abuse worldwide spurred this program into action to fund substance use research to advance understanding of the biological foundations of substance use disorders and find novel breakthrough treatments. Along with the need to address opioid and cocaine abuse, the World Health Organization reports that alcohol consumption also contributes to 2.6 million deaths each year globally and to the disabilities and poor health of millions of people. Overall, harmful use of alcohol is responsible for 4.7% of the global burden of disease.
Participants, called performers by the program, were chosen from universities, research institutions, companies, governments and nonprofit research organizations. They will collaborate to make progress toward the program’s common goals.
“UT Health San Antonio has an impressive assembly of researchers with cutting-edge expertise and capabilities,” Ginsburg said.
The project brings three distinct research groups together: the Biochemical Pharmacology Analytical Laboratory, UT Health San Antonio’s Research Imaging Institute and the university’s Be Well Institute on Substance Use and Related Disorders, a new initiative dedicated to advancing research, education and evidence-based treatments.
“This allows synergy on this research project,” Ginsburg said.
Ginsburg, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science in the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine, is a primary investigator for his study and will be working with co-primary investigators Peter Fox, MD, and Chukwuemeka Okafor, PhD, and co-investigators Nathalie Hill-Kapturczak, PhD, Felipe Salinas, PhD, and Tara Karnes-Wright, PhD.
The team will be conducting an open-label clinical trial of image-guided, robot-navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation for alcohol-use disorder and development of a neurobiological biomarker for cravings and relapse, validated using a direct biochemical marker of alcohol use.
Biomarker identification and analysis will be completed at the Biochemical Pharmacology Analytical Laboratory, transcranial magnetic stimulation will be conducted at the Research Imaging Institute and the Be Well Institute will provide clinical expertise to diagnose and evaluate changes in individuals’ alcohol use disorder.
Ginsburg said the overarching goal of the research is to improve therapeutic outcomes in individuals with alcohol use disorder. Specific study objectives are to evaluate transcranial magnetic stimulation in three different brain areas thought to involve alcohol and other drug cravings and validate brain functional connectivity as a quantitative biomarker for alcohol use disorder and recovery. Both objectives will be verified through blood testing for phosphatidylethanol (a direct metabolite of alcohol) and clinical measure outcomes.
Study participants with alcohol use disorder will be randomized and then treated with robot-navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation at one of three different brain regions that are thought to be involved in the disorder. The participants’ drinking will be monitored using the validated biomarker to determine if the treatment results in a sustained decrease in drinking for each of the targeted treatment locations.
The team will also explore a noninvasive, brain image-based biomarker of craving and see how changes in that biomarker correspond with changes in the identified metabolite.
This three-year study relates directly to the Wellcome Leap Untangling Addiction program’s goals of identifying groundbreaking new approaches to treat substance use disorders and identifying biomarkers of cravings and substance use disorder.
Read more: Think Science: Let’s talk about addiction held at UT Health San Antonio