The Power of Belief: Expectation-driven and Placebo Modulation of Empathic Pain
试验速览
- 阶段
- 不适用
- 状态
- 招募中
- 发起方
- 入组人数
- 120
- 试验地点
- 2
- 主要终点
- Analgesia-weighted empathic pain ratings (R')
研究概览
简要总结
This study investigates how belief and expectation influence empathic pain-the pain we feel when observing others in distress. Healthy adult participants will be randomly assigned to one of three groups: no-treatment control, placebo nasal spray, oxytocin-containing nasal spray. Participants in both the placebo and oxytocin conditions will be informed that they are receiving oxytocin, described as a potent agent for pain relief. During functional MRI scanning, all participants will view naturalistic pain-related videos and provide ratings of perceived subjective pain. The study aims to examine how cognitive beliefs and neuromodulatory interventions alter subjective pain experience and brain activity, including changes in brain network communication.
详细描述
This study examines how belief-driven expectations modulate empathic pain at both behavioral and neural levels. Healthy adult participants will be randomly assigned to one of three groups: no-treatment control, placebo nasal spray, oxytocin-containing nasal spray. Participants in both the placebo and oxytocin conditions will be informed that they are receiving oxytocin, described as a potent agent for pain relief.
During fMRI scanning, participants will complete a naturalistic empathic pain task by viewing videos depicting others in pain and rating their perceived pain on a standardized scale. Behavioral data will be transformed into analgesia-weighted scores to capture individual sensitivity to expectation-driven analgesia. Neural data will include whole-brain voxel-wise activity, multivariate predictive patterns derived from partial least squares regression (PLSR), and directed functional connectivity assessed using lagged partial-correlation directionality analysis (LPC-DA) to evaluate top-down and bottom-up information flow.
The primary objectives are to (1) assess the behavioral effects of expectation-driven analgesia, (2) identify brain regions predictive of pain modulation, and (3) characterize hierarchical network reorganization under different interventions.
研究设计
- 研究类型
- Interventional
- 分配方式
- Randomized
- 干预模型
- Parallel
- 主要目的
- Basic Science
- 盲法
- Double (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
盲法说明
The placebo (PLC) and oxytocin (OXT) spray conditions were conducted under a single-blind design due to all participants in both the placebo and oxytocin conditions will be informed that they are receiving oxytocin, described as a potent agent for pain relief.
入排标准
- 年龄范围
- 18 Years 至 30 Years（Adult）
- 性别
- All
- 接受健康志愿者
- 是
入选标准
- •(1) Healthy subjects without any past or present psychiatric or neurological disorders; (2) Healthy subjects without any current psychotherapeutic medication.
排除标准
- •(1) Participant with any past or present psychiatric or neurological disorders; (2)Participant with any current psychotherapeutic medication.
研究组 & 干预措施
Intranasal Oxytocin
Administer oxytocin (24 IU) intranasally.
干预措施: Intranasal Oxytocin (OT) 24 IU (Drug)
Intranasal placebo
Administer placebo intranasally.
干预措施: Intranasal placebo administration (Drug)
Intranasal nothing (control)
Control condition
结局指标
主要结局
Analgesia-weighted empathic pain ratings (R')
时间窗: During fMRI scanning (45 minutes follollowing treament adminstration), for each video stimulus presentation
Subjective pain ratings for each stimulus adjusted for treatment-specific baseline and analgesia-dependent gain to capture individual sensitivity to expectation-driven analgesia.
Whole-brain multivariate predictive patterns
时间窗: During fMRI scanning (45 minutes follollowing treament adminstration), analyzed post-session
Partial least squares regression (PLSR) will be applied to voxel-wise fMRI contrast maps to identify latent components that predict analgesia-weighted pain scores under different interventions.
Directed functional connectivity and network hierarchy
时间窗: During fMRI scanning (45 minutes follollowing treament adminstration), analyzed post-session
Lagged partial-correlation directionality analysis (LPC-DA) among key regions identified by PLSR will quantify top-down and bottom-up information flow in empathic pain circuits.
次要结局
未报告次要终点
研究者
Weihua Zhao
Associate Professor
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China