Effects of intranasal oxytocin on the extinction of fear memories in patients and rodent models with chronic pain (B02)

• Subject Area: Clinical Neurology; Neurosurgery and Neuroradiology ; Molecular Biology and Physiology of Neurons and Glial Cells
• Term: since 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 255156212

Treating chronic pain by targeting pain-related fear mechanisms has long been in the focus of research. This human-rodent tandem project will use a multiple-day classical fear conditioning paradigm to examine the modulatory effects of synthetic oxytocin on fear extinction in humans with chronic low-back pain and in rodent model of a chronic neuropathic pain. The multiple-day design will allow to delineate the time-dependent oxytocin effects on fear memory formation, expression, extinction, and extinction recall in both human and rodents. Various conventional and advanced techniques, including fMRI, electrodermal activity, and psychological assessments in the human subproject along with virally-driven genetic manipulations, fiber photometry, and oxytocin analogues followed by behavioral pain measurements in the rodent subproject will be employed in this complementary designed study.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1158: From nociception to chronic pain: Structure-function properties of neural pathways and their reorganisation
• Applicant Institution: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
• Project Heads: Professorin Dr. Beate Ditzen, from 7/2019 until 6/2023; Professor Dr. Valery Grinevich; Professorin Dr. Sabine C. Herpertz