Clinical Research Directory

Virtual Contexts for Affective Modulation

Sponsor: Trustees of Dartmouth College

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.

Official title: Controllability of Virtual Contexts for the Modulation of the Affective Experience

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