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

The Washington University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Child Development

Treatments: Behavioral: Parental Support Cold Pressor Task

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT06445712

UL1TR002345 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

202312107

Details and patient eligibility

About

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.

Full 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.

Enrollment: 39 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 6 to 9 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Subjects who have been enrolled in our ongoing CARE study

Exclusion criteria

• Subjects who have not participated in the CARE study

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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39 participants in 1 patient group

Pain Assessment

Experimental group

Description:

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).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Parental Support Cold Pressor Task