The Power of Belief: Expectation-driven and Placebo Modulation of Empathic Pain

Condition(s) studied

Investigational drug(s) / intervention(s)

Intranasal Oxytocin (OT) 24 IU: 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.

Intranasal placebo administration: 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.

Study 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.

Eligibility

Primary outcome measure(s)

• 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.

Trial sites (2)

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