Neural Correlates of Hypoalgesia Driven by Observation
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2023-07-30
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Placebo effects held an ambivalent place in health care for at least two centuries. On the
one hand, placebos are traditionally used as controls in clinical trials to correct for
biases and the placebo response is viewed as an effect to be factored out in order to isolate
and accurately measure the effects of the treatment. On the other hand, there is scientific
evidence that placebo effects represent fascinating psychoneurobiological events involving
the contribution of distinct central nervous as well as peripheral physiological mechanisms
that influence pain perception and clinical pain symptoms and substantially modulate the
response to pain therapeutics. Therefore, placebo effects have shifted from being a challenge
for clinical trials to a resource to trigger the reduction of pain based on endogenous
mechanisms that can be activated in the brain to promote hypolagesia, self-healing, and
well-being. This is relevant in acute pain settings given that chronic opioid users die
within approximately 2.5 years of being prescribed their first opioid medication to treat
acute pain.
The overall hypothesis is that observational learning influences neural pain modulation and
cognition systems, including processes associated with mentalizing (the ability to
cognitively understand mental states of others), empathy (the ability to share an emotional
experience), and expectancy (the anticipation of a benefit). The objective is to determine
the brain mechanisms of observationally-induced analgesia using brain mapping approaches that
target changes in blood oxygenation and oscillatory activity in the brain, thus enabling
investigators to draw inferences about the localization and extent of neurobiological
activation underlying hypoalgesia driven by observation. Therefore, the investigators
designed innovative experiments using pharmacological fMRI, EEG, and combined EEG-fMRI
measurements.
Phase:
Phase 2
Details
Lead Sponsor:
University of Maryland University of Maryland, Baltimore