eural and behavioral mechanisms of appetitive and aversive pain-related learning in chronic back pain patients and healthy participants

Conditions: M54.9
Dorsalgia, unspecified

Registration Number: DRKS00027448

Lead Sponsor: niversitätsklinikum Essen

Brief Summary: Not available

Detailed Description: Not available

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: Complete

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 166

Inclusion Criteria

For both groups:
Age >=18 and <=80 years; normal or corrected-to-normal vision; right-handedness.

Additionally for the patient group:
Nonspecific remitting or persistent back pain that has been present for at least 12 weeks.

Exclusion Criteria

For both groups:
Acute infections; participation in studies with investigational drugs (within the last three months); alcohol consumption within the last 24 hours; usual exclusion criteria for MRI examinations, e.g., metallic or electromagnetic parts in the body; skin diseases or other visible signs of acute dermatological abnormalities; malignant diseases; regular use of recreational drugs.

For patient group: severe mental disorders (e.g., major depression, psychosis, schizophrenia); opioid treatment with more than 100 mg morphine equivalent/day (any other treatment must be constant before study participation).

For control group: current or past internal medical conditions; neurological and mental illnesses; pain disorders; use of analgesics within the past 24 hours.

Study & Design

Study Type: observational

Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Development of valence ratings of conditioned stimuli (CS) over the acquisition phase, extinction phase, and reinstatement phase using a visual analog scale with the anchors very pleasant (-50), neutral (0) and very unpleasant (50).

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Contingency ratings CS-US coupling after acquisition and extinction phases, pain intensity and (un)pleasantness ratings of the unconditioned stimuli (US, temperature stimuli), electrodermal activity (skin conductance response) to CS and US, neural activity (BOLD response) on CS and US.<br><br>Exploratory outcomes include questionnaire data on personality traits and pain-related cognitions. These include:<br>- State and Trait Anxiety and Depression<br>- Stress<br>- Pain Anxiety<br>- Pain Catastrophizing