Clinical trial NCT04664400: N-of-few Study of Pain Perception
Official title: Common and Distinct Mechanisms of Expectancy Effects Across Outcomes
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Healthy
Lead sponsor: Trustees of Dartmouth College
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
First posted: 2020-12-11
Enrollment: 10
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 55
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Intervention model description: Within-participant design with behavioral manipulations.
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: A behavioral study that will examine how pain perception is affected by different types of conditioning and by context, with a few participants and multiple sessions ("N-of-few" design).


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Healthy participants

Exclusion Criteria:

* Cannot tolerate heat pain applied to the forearm/leg, based on a calibration task at the beginning of the experiment

Primary outcomes:
measure: Within Participant Subjective Ratings of Acute Thermal Pain Following High Compared to Low Cues (Learned Via Symbolic Learning)
timeFrame: Measured repeatedly during pain tasks, in each of the 10 sessions of the experiment (up to 3 sessions per week, depending on the participants' availability), immediately after thermal stimuli. Averaged across sessions and compared across conditions.
measure: Within Participant Subjective Ratings of Acute Thermal Pain Following High Compared to Low Cues (Learned Via Conditioning)
timeFrame: Measured repeatedly during pain tasks, in each of the 10 sessions of the experiment (up to 3 sessions per week, depending on the participants' availability), immediately after thermal stimuli. Averaged across sessions and compared across conditions.
measure: Within Participant Subjective Ratings of Acute Thermal Pain Following High Compared to Low Cues (Learned Via Instructions Only)
timeFrame: Measured repeatedly during pain tasks, in each of the 10 sessions of the experiment (up to 3 sessions per week, depending on the participants' availability), immediately after thermal stimuli. Averaged across sessions and compared across conditions.
measure: Within Participant Subjective Ratings of Acute Thermal Pain, When it is the Worse vs. the Better Alternative
timeFrame: Measured repeatedly during pain tasks, in each of the last 4 sessions of the experiment, immediately after thermal stimuli. Averaged across sessions and compared across conditions.
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
measure: Within Participant Facial Expressions
timeFrame: Measured continuously during pain stimuli in each of the 10 sessions of the experiment (up to 3 sessions per week, depending on the participants' availability). Averaged and compared across conditions.
measure: Within Participant Thermal Imaging of the Face
timeFrame: Measured continuously during pain stimuli in each of the 10 sessions of the experiment (up to 3 sessions per week, depending on the participants' availability). Averaged and compared across conditions.
measure: Within Participant Changes in Skin Conductance Response Measured With a Biopac MP160 Device
timeFrame: Measured continuously during pain stimuli in each of the 10 sessions of the experiment (up to 3 sessions per week, depending on the participants' availability). Averaged and compared across conditions.
measure: Within Participant Changes in Subjective Ratings of Pain Expectations
timeFrame: Measured repeatedly during pain tasks, in each of the 10 sessions of the experiment (up to 3 sessions per week, depending on the participants' availability), immediately before thermal stimuli. Averaged and compared across conditions.
Locations:
city: Hanover
country: United States
facility: Dartmouth College
state: New Hampshire
Study officials:
affiliation: Dartmouth College
name: Tor D Wager, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: