NCT04664400

N-of-few Study of Pain Perception

Common and Distinct Mechanisms of Expectancy Effects Across Outcomes

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 10 (actual)
• Sponsor: Trustees of Dartmouth College · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 55 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

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).

Conditions

• Healthy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Symbolic conditioning	Participants will learn associations between cues and thermal stimuli with varying temperatures (low vs. high) through symbolic conditioning (no actual heat stimuli, only pictures of thermometers)
BEHAVIORAL	Conditioning	Participants will learn associations between cues and thermal stimuli with varying temperatures (low vs. high) from experience (with actual heat stimuli).
BEHAVIORAL	Instructions	Participants will learn associations between cues and thermal stimuli with varying temperatures (low vs. high) from verbal instructions.
BEHAVIORAL	Counterfactual	Thermal stimuli will be either the better outcome or the worse outcome out of two possible outcomes.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-01-22
• Primary completion: 2021-05-24
• Completion: 2021-05-24
• First posted: 2020-12-11
• Last updated: 2023-04-18
• Results posted: 2022-11-18

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States