Methamphetamine-dependence

GEM is a two-phase study to evaluate the use of semaglutide (Wegovy) for the treatment of methamphetamine use disorder (MeUD). The first phase is a pilot study, which will be an open-label, single-arm pilot study of 25 participants. Participants will receive Wegovy over a 12-week treatment period, with a subsequent follow-up visit at week 20. This phase will evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of Wegovy for MeUD. The second phase will be a phase IIb randomized-controlled trial to determine the efficacy of Wegovy in treating MeUD. This trial will be similar to the pilot with randomization to Wegovy or placebo and blinding of group assignment. The trial will enroll 162 participants across two sites.

The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of extended release naltrexone plus bupropion XL (XR-NTX/BUP-XL) compared to matched injectable and oral placebo (iPLB/oPLB) in reducing methamphetamine (MA) use in individuals with moderate or severe methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) seeking to stop or reduce MA use.

Methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) is becoming an increasing public health concern in Canada. While the evidence on the efficacy and safety of prescription psychostimulants for the treatment of MUD is promising, the knowledge on the maintenance therapy using stimulant agonist therapy is scarce and needs further investigation, especially in terms of long-term retention in treatment. The goal of this clinical trial is to evaluate the feasibility of a long-term (25 weeks) administration of high-dose stimulant agonist therapy, using Lisdexamfetamine (LDX-01) on top of treatment-as-usual (TAU), in a population of people with moderate to severe MUD, as measured by study retention, treatment retention, treatment adherence and satisfaction compared against a placebo group. Participants will be placed randomly into one of two groups: 1. TAU and high-dose LDX-01 2. TAU and placebo

Combatting the rise of the opioid epidemic is a central challenge of U.S. health care policy. A promising approach for improving welfare and decreasing medical costs of people with substance abuse disorders is offering incentive payments for healthy behaviors. This approach, broadly known as "contingency management" in the medical literature, has repeatedly shown to be effective in treating substance abuse. However, the use of incentives by treatment facilities remains extremely low. Furthermore, it is not well understood how to design optimal incentives to treat opioid abuse. This project will conduct a randomized evaluation of two types of dynamically adjusting incentive schedules for people with opioid use disorders or cocaine use disorders: "escalating" schedules where incentive amounts increase with success to increase incentive power, and "de-escalating" schedules where incentive amounts decrease with success to improve incentive targeting. Both schemes are implemented with a novel "turnkey" mobile application, making them uniquely low-cost, low-hassle, and scalable. Effects will be measured on abstinence outcomes, including longest duration of abstinence and the percentage of negative drug tests. In combination with survey data, variation from the experiment will shed light on the barriers to abstinence more broadly and inform the understanding of optimal incentive design.

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if administering a high dose stimulant with Contingency Management reduces days of use in adults who use methamphetamine better than the usual treatment provided by the clinic. The main questions the trial aims to answer are: Is a high dose stimulant better than a placebo and usual treatment at helping reduce the number of days they use methamphetamine? Is a high dose stimulant with contingency management better than placebo and usual treatment at helping people reduce the number of days they use methamphetamine? Participants will be placed randomly into one of four groups: 1. Usual treatment and placebo 2. Usual treatment, placebo and contingency management 3. Usual treatment and high dose stimulant 4. Usual treatment, high dose stimulant and contingency management Participation includes the following: 1. Participants will receive medication or placebo weekly for 15 weeks. 2. Participants will attend the clinic for weekly treatment 3. Participants will attend the clinic once every 2 weeks for study visits. Each visit will take about an hour to complete. At these visits, participants will be asked to provide a urine sample and complete questionnaires.

During the first funding period (1st FP), the investigators developed a novel full Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) task that allows assessing both, general and specific PIT to investigate whether specific PIT differs between alcohol use disorder (AUD) and control subjects. Preliminary analyses of the full transfer task indicate that AUD participants exhibit a stronger specific PIT effect compared to controls. Based on these findings, the investigators want to compare specific and general PIT effects in patients with moderate to severe substance use disorders (alcohol, cannabis, methamphetamine, amphetamine and cocaine) to healthy controls on the behavioral and neural level (fMRI).

* Assess the antidepressant/anxiolytic effect of creatine in male and female methamphetamine users * Assess creatine's effect on methamphetamine use * Assess the safety of creatine in male methamphetamine users with depression