Placebos can bring emotional relief --STUDY--

[HuckleB]

Placebos can bring emotional relief

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=26222

"Just as placebos have been shown to bring relief from pain, researchers have now found that they can affect emotion, alleviating the impact of unpleasant experiences. In an article in the June 16, 2005, issue of Neuron, researchers led by Predrag Petrovic of the Karolinska Institutet show that, in relieving anxiety, placebo treatment affects the same basic modulatory circuitry in the brain as it does for relieving pain.

In their experiments, the researchers tested the effect of placebo treatment on volunteer subjects' ratings of unpleasant pictures, such as images of mutilated bodies. Other researchers had shown that people's expectation of pain relief plays a major role in the effectiveness of placebos. So, in their experiments, the researchers first induced such an expectation in the subjects by administering an antianxiety drug to reduce the subjects' unpleasant perception of the pictures. They then administered an antidote to the drug, telling the subjects that it would restore the unpleasant perception.

In tests the following day, the subjects were told they would receive the same drugs. But instead, they received a saline solution as a placebo when they saw the pictures. The subjects' brains were also scanned during these experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This scanning technique uses harmless magnetic fields and radio waves to measure blood flow in brain regions, which reflects brain activity.

The researchers found that the placebo reduced the subjects' ratings of the unpleasant pictures by about 29%. Importantly, the fMRI scans showed that the placebo reduced activity in the brain's emotional centers, and this reduction correlated with a subject's amount of reduction in the rated unpleasantness of the pictures. That is, the subjects who reported the largest placebo response also showed the largest decrease in activity in the emotional centers.

..."



Obviously, we already knew this somewhat, generally, via placebo comparison trials with various psychotropic medication. It's wonderful to see this further study on the matter, giving much more understanding of the process.

[IndyOp]

1. Very nice! I just love fMRI studies and invest a lot of effort

explaining to my students the neurophysiological basis of the placebo effect. They think "it's all in your head" means that they are "just imagining it" - I convince them that "it's all in your head" means that they are controlling physiological events in their brain.

Hey, HuckleB - what do you do in your real life? You posted the piece on the (possible) evolutionary function of male nipples the other night -- are you into biology, evolutionary theory, psychology?

Thanks for posting the piece on male nipples -- that was a great laugh!

:kick:

[HuckleB]

2. Glad you dug both pieces!

Salud!

:hi:

In "real" life, I'm a pediatric and psychiatric nurse practitioner. I currently spend most of my time focused on eating disorders, though most of my experience and research revolves around neurodevelopmental disabilities.

What do you teach? Are you in research as well?