Claustrum

Inclusion criteria:

• No history of chronic pain
• No current acute pain
• No hyper / hyposensitivity to thermal stimuli, e.g., Raynaud's disease
• Between 18 and 70 years of age
• Able to understand and willing to comply with all study procedures and is available for the duration of the study
• Provide a signed and dated informed consent form
• Able to speak, read, and write English

Exclusion criteria:

• Unable or refusal to provide written consent
• Presence of any acute pain disorder
• History or presence of any chronic pain disorder
• History or presence of any other significant medical or psychiatric complaint
• Use of opioids or illicit drugs in the past 3 months • Pregnant or lactating women (self-reported)
• Excessive alcohol use (based on the CDC criteria: 8 standard drinks per week for females; 15 standard drinks per week for males
• Current smoker or using nicotine replacements such as nicotine gum
• Unable to undergo MRI due to MRI screening form failure
• Anything that, in the opinion of the investigator, would place the subject at increased risk or preclude the subject’s full compliance with or completion of the study

Your participation would involve up to 5 sessions at Robarts Research Institute on different days and each session would be about 2 hours long. Participation in this study requires you to simply lie still within the MRI machine for up to 90 minutes, while performing several simple cognitive tasks. There will also be some questionnaires and testing of pain thresholds using safe devices.

1. You will begin by completing several questionnaires that ask for your demographics, socio-economic status, medical history, substance use, quality of life, along with the pain and mental health.
2. You will fill out an MRI environment screening form.
3. We will test your subjective experience with pain using a thermal stimulator device. The thermal stimuli, which are heat or cool pulses delivered through a surface specially designed for this kind of experiments, may become painful but will never cause a burn. You may stop the stimulus if at any time you become uncomfortable.
4. You will learn to complete a number of computerized attention tasks. You will perform them inside the MR scanner.
5. You will be given a pair of earplugs to wear to protect you from the noise of the MRI.
6. You will be placed inside the MRI machine, for up to 90 minutes. You will perform the attention tasks while you are in the scanner. You will also experience thermal stimulation that may be warm or painful and you will rate the intensity of the pain.

Principal Investigator: David Seminowicz
Study posted on: December 6th, 2023
Recruitment open until: November 15th, 2025

For more information about this study please contact:

Chun Yin Liu
cliu2246@uwo.ca