The Warmth, Anticipation, Sensation, Aversion, and Body-part Imaging Study

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.

NCT Number	NCT04653064
Lead Sponsor	Trustees of Dartmouth College
Conditions	Pain
Enrollment	150 participants
Start Date	2021-03-19
Primary Completion	2026-02-26 (estimated)
Study Completion	2026-12-26 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2026-01-14