# Natural environment assessment of alcohol responses in risky drinkers

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · 2022 · $248,403

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY ABSTRACT
Laboratory alcohol challenges have provided important knowledge about individual responses to alcohol and
risk for drinking-related problems. However, this approach is time- and resource-intensive and cannot fully
capture real-world alcohol responses. Therefore, the MPI propose developmental work on a method for
assessing ambulatory alcohol responses that combines smartphone-based high-resolution ecological
momentary assessment (HR-EMA) with new-generation, wrist-worn alcohol biosensors (BACTrack Skyn™) to
provide objective verification of alcohol use. The over-arching goal of this developmental R21 proposal is to
compare HR-EMA-derived real-time responses during typical heavy drinking episodes in the natural
environment in individuals across the alcohol use continuum, including alcohol use disorder (AUD) drinkers,
who have largely been excluded from such research, as well as heavy social drinkers (HD) and light drinker
controls (LD). The proposed research will include smartphone assessments throughout a typical drinking
episode in participants’ natural environment as well during a comparison non-alcohol drinking beverage
consumption episode assessed at approximately the same time but on a different day. Participants will
complete brief 1-minute smartphone-based surveys at multiple time points during their drinking episodes to
assess their quantity consumed, subjective responses, and contextual events. They will also complete brief
daily mood surveys and next-day surveys after the drinking episodes to assess carry-over effects and
consequences. The noninvasive wrist-worn sensor will be used during, and for 12 hours after, each drinking
episode as objective verification of self-report behavior. The study will enroll 105 participants (35/per subgroup)
between ages 21-55 for participation over an approximate one-week interval. We conservatively anticipate up
to a 15% drop-out rate in order to have a final N=90 participants. Our first aim is to compare acute subjective
responses during alcohol drinking episodes in the natural environment across drinker subgroups. We predict
that alcohol will produce higher stimulation, liking, and wanting in AUD and HD than in LD, particularly early in
the drinking episode (i.e., first hour) and greater reduction in anxiety and stress in AUD versus HD and LD,
after controlling for amount consumed and non-alcohol drinking episode responses. We also predict that
wearable biosensors will be acceptable (≥85% use, few losses or damage) and show good sensitivity and
specificity detect alcohol use vs. non-use in >90% of episodes. Our second aim is to examine individual
differences in acute alcohol responses as a function of drinking pace. We predict that faster-paced alcohol
consumption will be positively associated with stimulation and wanting and inversely associated with sedation,
and these effects will be most pronounced in AUD vs LD, with HD intermediate. In sum, the proposed research
will adva...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10452362
- **Project number:** 1R21AA029746-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
- **Principal Investigator:** DANIEL J FRIDBERG
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $248,403
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-04-20 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10452362

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10452362, Natural environment assessment of alcohol responses in risky drinkers (1R21AA029746-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10452362. Licensed CC0.

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