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Virtual Contexts for Affective Modulation

Trustees of Dartmouth College · NCT06986122

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Opens the official ClinicalTrials.gov record, with the study team’s contacts. Bored Studies doesn’t enroll anyone.

Key facts

Compensation
Not posted. Ask the study team before screening.
Who can join
Ages 18–55 · All sexes
Healthy volunteers
Accepted
Study type
Interventional · Not applicable
Target enrollment
20
US sites recruiting
1
Study start
October 28, 2025
Record last updated
October 31, 2025

Status re-checked against ClinicalTrials.gov within the last 12 hours.

What the study is about

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.

Being studied: Pain Threat Manipulation; Pain Controllability Manipulation

Conditions: Pain Control; Anxiety; Memory

Eligibility criteria

Copied from the official record. The study team makes the final decision at screening.

Show full criteria
  • 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)

Recruiting US locations

  • Dartmouth College

    Hanover, NH 03755

    Site contact: Sydney Shohan

Study contacts (from the official record)

  • Tor D Wager, PhD · 3038958739 · tor.d.wager@dartmouth.edu
  • Vivek Sagar, PhD · vivek.sagar@dartmouth.edu
All mental health studies in New Hampshire →
Virtual Contexts for Affective Modulation (NCT06986122) | Bored Studies