Clinical trial NCT03190486: Perception of Baby's Painful Cry in fMRI
Official title: Perception of Baby's Painful Cry: Investigation in fMRI to Neuronal Activity Related to Empathy in Adults
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Neuronal Activity
Keywords: Baby cries
pain
brain responses
neuroimaging
fMRI
Lead sponsor: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: University Hospital of Saint-Etienne
First posted: 2017-06-16
Enrollment: 80
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 50
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: 20 men and 20 women : group "non parent" 20 father and 20 mother : group "parent"
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: Crying is the primary signaling strategy available to the human newborn for eliciting parental care. Yet, the investigators only have superficial understanding of the information carried by cries, and how this information is perceived by parents. Using modern tools of sound processing and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiment, this study aims to investigate cry-induced brain activation in adult depending on the cry's acoustic properties expressing various degrees of stress and distress levels. For that, Adults will be tested inside a fMRI magnet to determine their brain activations elicited by different babies cries according to whether the cry was evoked in a pain situation or not. The cerebral activity will be investigated in relation to acoustic features of cries (e.g. with pitch and/or roughness variations). To test if the gender or parentally of adult listeners influence their perceptions and brain responses, the task will be applied to 2 different groups (men and women not-parents). The hypothesis is that the brain of adult listeners will be able to discriminate adequately the intensity of the pain mediated by the cries. This process should involve brain areas such as the insular and the orbito frontal cortex that are known to participate in the integration of pain intensity and pain controls. The experiment should also determine which one of the acoustic features is able to transmit pain and to recruit brain areas involved in pain processes.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Man or woman aged between 18 and 50
* Contact-less with children
* right-handed
* Giving their written informed consent
* Subject who agreed to communicate MRI results to their attending physician
* French Social Security affiliation

Exclusion Criteria:

* any contraindications to pass an fMRI test
* Pregnant woman

Primary outcomes:
measure: BOLD (blood-oxygen-level dependent) -contrast imaging
timeFrame: at inclusion
Secondary outcomes:
measure: BOLD (blood-oxygen-level dependent) -contrast imaging
timeFrame: at inclusion
measure: impact of gender and parenting on perception of baby's cry
timeFrame: at inclusion
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Saint-Etienne
country: France
facility: Service de Neurologie - CHU de Saint-Etienne
Study officials:
affiliation: CHU SAINT-ETIENNE
name: Roland PEYRON, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: