Reducing Pain With Focused Music Listening (PainMusic)

Reducing Pain Thresholds Using a Focused Music Listening Technique

Pain-reducing effects of music listening are well-established, but the effects are small and their clinical relevance questionable. Recent theoretical advances, however, have proposed that synchronizing to music, such as clapping, tapping or dancing, has evolutionarily important social effects that are associated with activation of the endogenous opioid system (EOS; which supports both analgesia and social bonding). Thus, active sensorimotor synchronization to music could have stronger analgesic effects than simply listening to music. However, to the best of the investigators' knowledge, the hypothesis of an EOS activation by sensorimotor synchronization to music has never been investigated. Accordingly, the investigators set up a test with the premise that if sensorimotor synchronization to music indeed activates the EOS, then it should have larger pain-reducing effects than simply listening to music. Using pressure algometry to the fingernails, specific amounts of pain were delivered to healthy adults either during music listening or silence, while either performing an active tapping task or a passive control task. As the dependent variable, perceived pain was rated on a scale ranging from 1 to 9 (1 = very little, 5 = medium, 9 = very strong). In addition, to pain ratings, participants provided ratings of their emotional state in terms of pleasantness as well as arousal, and then rated their familiarity with the music (also on scales ranging from 1 to 9). Emotion ratings were obtained to explore whether the mechanisms driving pain-reducing effects of sensorimotor synchronization to music include emotion. At the end of the experiment, participants also rated their preference for the music on a scale ranging from 1 to 9 (see Method). Familiarity and preference ratings were obtained to elucidate possible contributions of these factors on pain reduction.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Pain
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Experimentally-induced pain

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 62
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Norway
  • Bergen Municipality
    • Bergen, Bergen Municipality, Norway, 5020
      • University of Bergen

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 19 years to 35 years (Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• 18 years or older
• Healthy

Exclusion Criteria:

• History of a psychiatric or neurological disease
• History of substance dependence
• use of any prescription drugs
• Hearing impairment
• Musical anhedonia

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Experimental: Operationalization; The experiment used a 2x2 within-subjects design in which participants either listened to music or underwent a silent control period and either performed an active foot tapping task, or a passive control task with no movement resulting in four experimental trial types: (a) Music Active (music with tapping); (b) Music Passive (music without tapping); (c) Silence Active (silence with tapping); and (d) Silence Passive (silence without tapping). The allocation of the music excerpts to the task (active, passive) was random, and the order of the four experimental trial types was counterbalanced.

Behavioral: Experimentally-induced pain; Specific pain levels were applied on the participants' fingernails in each of 40 experimental trials using pressure algometry.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Perceived Pain	rated on a scale ranging from 1 to 9 (1 = very little, 5 = medium, 9 = very strong)	40 minutes (duration of time over which each participant is assessed)
Emotional state with regard to felt pleasantness	rated on a scale ranging from 1 to 9 (1 = very uncomfortable, 5 = medium, 9 = very comfortable)	40 minutes (duration of time over which each participant is assessed)
Emotional state with regard to felt arousal	rated on a scale ranging from 1 to 9 (1 = very calm, 5 = medium, 9 = very activated)	40 minutes (duration of time over which each participant is assessed)
Familiarity with the music excerpt (only during trials with music)	rated on a scale ranging from 1 to 9 (1 = not at all, 5 = partially known, 9 = well known)	40 minutes (duration of time over which each participant is assessed)
Preference ratings for each musical excerpt	rated on a scale ranging from 1 to 9 (1 = strongly disliked, 5 = medium, 9 = strongly liked)	5 min (duration of time over which each participant is assessed)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Bergen
• Collaborators: The Research Council of Norway
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Stefan Koelsch, PhD, University of Bergen, Norway

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): April 22, 2019
• Primary Completion (Actual): October 30, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): October 30, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 31, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 3, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): March 4, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 4, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 3, 2022
• Last Verified: March 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: BFS Toppforsk

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No