Examining the Role of Pain in the Link Between Early Childhood Adversity and Psychopathology

NCT ID: NCT06445712

Last Updated: 2025-11-13

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 39 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2024-05-01
• Study Completion Date: 2025-03-23

Brief Summary

The goal of this study is to investigate the role of physical pain in the link between childhood adversity and later psychopathology. Children who are participating in a larger longitudinal study will be asked to submerge their hand in cold water and hold it in the cold water as long as possible. Participants will do this twice, once alone and once holding the hand of their parent, to examine the role of parental support in pain development. The study will examine self-report of pain and salivary cortisol response to pain. It is hypothesized that children who have been exposed to more adversity will experience increased pain response and increased psychopathology symptoms. It is expected that higher social support in the family will decrease this relationship.

Detailed Description

This study will initiate a program of prospective research, linking early life adversity to both pain and psychopathology symptoms in the pre-adolescent period. This study will examine these links using an existing longitudinal sample of 6.5-9.5 year-old children experiencing familial stress. The project will examine the relationship between dysregulation and pain sensitivity from the behavioral perspective, but also through HPA axis dysregulation. Finally, the project will probe parental support as a moderator on the relationship between dysregulation and pain and psychopathology symptoms. The project will use a novel adaptation of the cold pressor test to examine experimental pain sensitivity as a function of parental support by including a condition in which the child holds the hand of their parent during the task. The project will also examine the neural basis of social support through parent-child brain synchronization. Support for the proposed model may indicate that interventions that increase parental support might decrease both pain and psychopathology.

Conditions

Child Development

Keywords

Pain; Early Life Adversity

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NA
• Intervention Model: SINGLE_GROUP
• Primary Study Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Pain Assessment

Children will submerge their hand in cold water and be asked to hold it in as long as possible. They will do this both alone and holding the hand of a parent (counterbalanced).

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Parental Support Cold Pressor Task

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Child will submerge their hand in cold water alone and holding the hand of a parent.

Interventions

Parental Support Cold Pressor Task

Child will submerge their hand in cold water alone and holding the hand of a parent.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Subjects who have been enrolled in our ongoing CARE study

Exclusion Criteria

• Subjects who have not participated in the CARE study

• Minimum Eligible Age: 6 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 9 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

Washington University School of Medicine

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)

NIH

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Responsible Party

Susan Perlman

Professor of Psychiatry

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Locations

Laboratory for Child Brain Development

St Louis, Missouri, United States

Countries

United States

Other Identifiers

UL1TR002345

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: secondary_id

View Link

202312107

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id