Healthy Participants
Conditions
Keywords
Analgesic expectation, Empathic pain, fMRI, Oxytocin, Placebo
Brief summary
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.
Detailed description
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.
Interventions
Administer oxytocin (24 IU) intranasally, 6 individual 0.1 ml puffs (4 IU/0. 1ml), three puffs per nostril one every 30 seconds. The participants will be informed that they are receiving oxytocin, described as a potent agent for pain relief.
Administer placebo intranasally, 6 individual 0.1 ml puffs, three puffs per nostril one every 30 seconds. The participants will be informed that they are receiving oxytocin, described as a potent agent for pain relief.
Sponsors
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
DOUBLE (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Masking description
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.
Intervention model description
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.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 30 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* (1) Healthy subjects without any past or present psychiatric or neurological disorders; (2) Healthy subjects without any current psychotherapeutic medication.
Exclusion criteria
* (1) Participant with any past or present psychiatric or neurological disorders; (2)Participant with any current psychotherapeutic medication.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Analgesia-weighted empathic pain ratings (R') | 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 | 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 | 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. |
Countries
China
Contacts
CONTACTWeihua Zhao
CONTACTKeith Kendrick
STUDY_CHAIRSiying Wang
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Outcome results
None listed