Perception of Baby's Painful Cry in fMRI

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Clinical Trial

Official title:

Perception of Baby's Painful Cry: Investigation in fMRI to Neuronal Activity Related to Empathy in Adults

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT03190486
• Other study ID #: 1708071
• Secondary ID: ID-RCB
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: July 24, 2017
• Est. completion date: July 5, 2018

Study information

• Verified date: September 2018
• Source: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Crying is the primary signaling strategy available to the human newborn for eliciting parental care. Yet, the investigators only have superficial understanding of the information carried by cries, and how this information is perceived by parents. Using modern tools of sound processing and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiment, this study aims to investigate cry-induced brain activation in adult depending on the cry's acoustic properties expressing various degrees of stress and distress levels. For that, Adults will be tested inside a fMRI magnet to determine their brain activations elicited by different babies cries according to whether the cry was evoked in a pain situation or not. The cerebral activity will be investigated in relation to acoustic features of cries (e.g. with pitch and/or roughness variations). To test if the gender or parentally of adult listeners influence their perceptions and brain responses, the task will be applied to 2 different groups (men and women not-parents). The hypothesis is that the brain of adult listeners will be able to discriminate adequately the intensity of the pain mediated by the cries. This process should involve brain areas such as the insular and the orbito frontal cortex that are known to participate in the integration of pain intensity and pain controls. The experiment should also determine which one of the acoustic features is able to transmit pain and to recruit brain areas involved in pain processes.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 80
• Est. completion date: July 5, 2018
• Est. primary completion date: July 5, 2018
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 50 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Man or woman aged between 18 and 50

• Contact-less with children

• right-handed

• Giving their written informed consent

• Subject who agreed to communicate MRI results to their attending physician

• French Social Security affiliation

Exclusion Criteria:

• any contraindications to pass an fMRI test

• Pregnant woman

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• Neuronal Activity

Intervention

Other:
• functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
During fMRI, healthy volunteers will listen 80 baby's cry.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
France	Service de Neurologie - CHU de Saint-Etienne	Saint-Etienne

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne	University Hospital of Saint-Etienne

Country where clinical trial is conducted

France, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	BOLD (blood-oxygen-level dependent) -contrast imaging	Measure of blood-oxygen-level dependent with fMRI during listening to natural crying.	at inclusion
Secondary	BOLD (blood-oxygen-level dependent) -contrast imaging	Measure of blood-oxygen-level dependent with by fMRI during listening to artificial crying.	at inclusion
Secondary	impact of gender and parenting on perception of baby's cry	Measure of blood-oxygen-level dependent with by fMRI during listening to artificial crying.	at inclusion