Placebo Effects on Anxiety and Pain

Summary

This functional magnetic-resonance imaging study of the brain will feature a within-subject crossover design to investigate the effects of a placebo cream on painful thermal stimulation rendered upon eight body sites. The investigators aim to 1.) improve the understanding of how the brain represents thermal pain responses somatotopically (i.e., across different body-sites) 2.) to test these brain representations with and without the presence of a pain-targeted placebo intervention, and 3.) to examine how these brain representations change prior to vs. during the delivery of thermal pain. They predict that placebo cream will downregulate the intensity of aversive brain activity representations, and to a lesser degree, sensation and somatotopic representations, both prior to and during painful thermal stimulation.

Description

Eligibility

Age range

18+ years

Sex

All

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Interventions

• Behavioral
  Placebo Cream

  Approximately 1 teaspoon of exfoliating skin scrub delivered approximately 5 minutes prior to pain tasks will coincide with verbal descriptors of the cream as being analgesic.

• Behavioral
  Control Cream

  Approximately 1 teaspoon of exfoliating skin scrub delivered approximately 5 minutes prior to pain tasks will coincide with verbal descriptors of the cream as one of no effect.

Location