Altered Neural Pain Empathic Reactivity in NSSI Adolescents

Nonsuicidal Self Injury Clinical Trial

Official title:

Abnormal Neural Pain Empathic Processing in Adolescents With Non-suicidal Self-Injury

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT05968313
• Other study ID #: BAM_lab_NSSI_02
• Status: Recruiting
• Start date: December 6, 2023
• Est. completion date: July 2027

Study information

• Verified date: April 2024
• Source: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
• Contact: Benjamin Becker
• Phone: +86.028-61830867
• Email: ben_becker[@]gmx.de
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is defined as direct, deliberate bodily harm without suicidal intention. In recent years, growing evidence suggests that NSSI has become a worldwide public health issue. People with NSSI behaviors, especially adolescents, commonly exhibit emotion-related and interpersonal problems. Pain empathy represents an essential basal domain of socio-emotional processing and refers to the ability to empathize, connect and share with others' pain. However, altered empathic processing has not been systematically examined in adolescents with NSSI. To this end, the current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study will recruit one group of NSSI adolescents (n=40) and one healthy control (HC) group (n=40), to compare their neural activity regarding pain empathy processing, which is measured by blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI. The investigators included conditions of physical pain empathy (stimuli depicting noxious stimulation to the limbs) and affective pain empathy (stimuli depicting faces expressing pain) as well as corresponding control stimuli. The investigators hypothesize that compared to HC, NSSI adolescents show increased empathic reactivity to physical pain stimuli in salience and arousal related brain regions but decreased empathic reactivity to affective pain empathic stimuli.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 80
• Est. completion date: July 2027
• Est. primary completion date: July 2026
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 15 Years to 18 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• 15-18 years
• right-handed
• normal or corrected normal visual acuity
• meet the proposed DSM-5 frequency criteria (e.g., =5 days of NSSI behaviors in the past year)

Exclusion Criteria:

• diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, other
• psychiatric disorders, etc.
• high suicidal risk
• recent use of medications that can affect neural activity
• have received or are receiving Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) other treatment for emotional problems within the past 6 months
• have a contraindication to MRI scanning (e.g., metal implants, claustrophobia or other conditions that make them inappropriate for MRI scanning)

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Nonsuicidal Self Injury
• Self-Injurious Behavior

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
China	Sichuan Provincial Center for Mental Health, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China	Chengdu	Sichuan

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

Country where clinical trial is conducted

China, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Neural activity as indexed by BOLD fMRI	Brain activity will be monitored by task-based fMRI. The paradigm will present affective and physical pain empathy pictures and matched control stimuli. Alterations in the patients will be determined by comparing neural activity to the experimental conditions between the experimental groups (NSSI vs. HC) using ANOVA models.	About 8 minutes