Altered Neural Pain Empathic Reactivity in NSSI Adolescents

NCT05968313 | Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: BAM_lab_NSSI_02
• Study Type: observational
• Target: 80
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief 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.

Conditions

Nonsuicidal Self Injury; Pain Empathy

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• 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

Study Arms (2)

NSSI

HC

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 15 Years - 18 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64)
• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Treatment-seeking NSSI individuals will be recruited from local hospitals and HC from the community

You may qualify if:

• 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)

You may not qualify if:

• 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)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Electronic Science and Technology of China: lead

Study Sites (1)

Sichuan Provincial Center for Mental Health, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

Chengdu, Sichuan, China

RECRUITING

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Self-Injurious Behavior

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Behavioral Symptoms; Behavior

Central Study Contacts

Benjamin Becker

CONTACT

+86.028-61830867; ben_becker@gmx.de

Study Design

• Study Type: observational
• Observational Model: CASE CONTROL
• Time Perspective: CROSS SECTIONAL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: July 20, 2023
• First Posted: August 1, 2023
• Study Start: December 6, 2023
• Primary Completion (Estimated): July 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): July 1, 2027
• Last Updated: April 11, 2024

Record last verified: 2024-04

Locations

CN (1)