The Role of Brain Dopamine in Chronic Pain
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT05285683. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
The Role of Dopamine in the Central Neural Signature of Chronic Pain
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Chronic pain is associated with plasticity in the brain limbic system composed mainly of the amygdala, hippocampus, ventral striatum, and cingulate cortex (ACC) /medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). These brain areas, especially the ventral striatum, receive dopaminergic input from the ventral-tegmental area (VTA). Although there is a significant literature now showing that limbic brain tracks chronic pain intensity and predicts the risk of transition from sub-acute to chronic pain, the role of dopaminergic input to the limbic brain and the change thereof which occurs in chronic pain, is still not clear. Given the role of dopamine in motivational control and the loss of motivation associated with chronic pain understanding how dopaminergic transmission is altered in the limbic brain of chronic pain patients is critical to the understanding of the pathophysiology of chronic pain. Therefore, the overall aim of this project is to use brain imaging to study how dopaminergic transmission through the oral administration of pro-dopaminergic medications carbidopa/levodopa (CD/LD) and methylphenidate will modulate the brain signature of chronic pain. Chronic pain subjects will be scanned at baseline (no drug administration) and three times after treatment with the two drugs or placebo. The protocol will follow a randomized double-blind approach.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT05285683
- Recruitment status
- Recruiting
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase 2
- Enrollment
- 10 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Jan 30, 2024
- Primary completion
- Dec 21, 2027
- Completion
- Dec 21, 2027
- Last update posted
- May 14, 2026
2024 – 2027
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Rochester Medical Center | Rochester | New York | 14642 | Recruiting |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT05285683, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted May 14, 2026 · Synced Sep 2, 2026
Related: full search, browse by condition, browse by drug or therapy, browse by sponsor, browse by U.S. city.
Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT05285683 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.