Individual Differences in Placebo Analgesic Effects

Launched by TRUSTEES OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE · Dec 10, 2020

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

This clinical trial is looking to understand how personalized suggestions about placebos—fake treatments that can sometimes help people feel better—affect pain relief. The researchers want to see if these suggestions work better when they match a person's motivation style. This type of research is important because it could help improve pain management in public health.

To participate in this study, you need to be a healthy adult between the ages of 65 and 88, and have a specific motivational style that either focuses on achieving goals (promotion focus) or avoiding negative outcomes (prevention focus). You won't be eligible if you've had chronic pain recently or if you can't handle heat pain applied to your arm during the study. If you join, you'll take part in a series of tests where your responses to these placebo suggestions will be measured. This research could lead to better pain relief strategies in the future!

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • Healthy participants
• • Dominant promotion focus or dominant prevention focus (based on our screening)
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • Currently or recently suffered from chronic pain (based on screening)
• • Cannot tolerate heat pain applied to the forearm, based on a calibration task at the beginning of the experiment