RecruitingNot ApplicableNCT06986122

Virtual Contexts for Affective Modulation

Controllability of Virtual Contexts for the Modulation of the Affective Experience

Sponsor

Trustees of Dartmouth College

Enrollment

20 participants

Start Date

Oct 28, 2025

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Conditions

Anxiety Memory Pain Control

Summary

This study investigates how spatial context and perceived controllability modulate pain, affective states such as anxiety, and motivated behavior. The study examines how control over pain and threat-related environments influences pain perception, state anxiety, associated autonomic responses, and behavior. The main questions it aims to answer are: Does having control over pain within specific contexts alter how much pain people feel-even when the stimulus intensity remains constant? How do different types of environments (safe, controllable, or uncontrollable) shape pain-related brain activity, subjective anxiety, and physiological arousal? How do people perform cognitively demanding or distracting tasks (and retain their memory) when under threat versus when in control? Lastly, how do these learned associations with spatial contexts persist or adapt when environmental contingencies are explicitly changed? Taken together, exploration of these factors may lay the groundwork for understanding how placebo-related mechanisms-including perceived control, contextual learning, emotional engagement, and distraction-interact to shape pain and anxiety in complex environments.

Eligibility

Min Age: 18 YearsMax Age: 55 Years

Inclusion Criteria10

No self-reported current or history of depression, bipolar disorder, or other psychiatric diagnosis
No self-reported current seizure disorder (i.e., seizure within past 10 years), or history of stroke or other major neurological diagnosis
No self-reported current chronic pain, or acute pain within three months of the study period
No current migraine disorder (i.e., 15 headache days or more in 1 month)
No use of central nervous system-effective medication or other medication for neurological/psychiatric treatment
No self-reported substance abuse within the last six months
No contraindication to MRI (e.g., pregnancy, claustrophobia, pacemakers, ear/cochlear implants, shrapnel injuries, clips, or other ferromagnetic/electrical objects/devices, diagnosed brain abnormality such as tumor, or skin lesions on the scalp.)
No contraindications for induced pain (e.g., no heart disease, high blood pressure, heart surgery, heart problems of any kind, severe asthma, respiratory problems of any kind, fibromyalgia, Raynaud's Syndrome or Disease, chronic pain, diabetes)
Participants must be capable of performing experimental tasks (e.g., are able to read), are fluent or native speakers of English
Participants must be able to tolerate the maximum level of thermal pain stimuli (for thermal stimuli)

Interventions

BEHAVIORALPain Threat Manipulation

Participants receive brief thermal pain stimuli in certain virtual environments to examine how threat influences perception and physiological responses.

BEHAVIORALPain Controllability Manipulation

In some contexts, participants can reduce or avoid pain using a button; in others, no action changes the outcome. This manipulation is used to study the effects of perceived control over pain.