Brain Chemicals Explain the Power of Placebos How chemicals made in our brains reduce pain By PATRICIA CHURCHLAND Aug. 5, 2015 11:28 a.m. ET We all know the basics of the placebo effect: Someone takes a sugar capsule that a trusted doctor has extolled as a breakthrough in pain relief, and the patient reports that […]

by Caryle Hirschberg and Brendan O’Regan In 1993, the Institute of Noetic Sciences published Spontaneous Remission: An Annotated Bibliography. In this work, the authors, Caryle Hirshberg and the late Brendan O’Regan, defined spontaneous remission as “the disappearance, complete or incomplete, of a disease or cancer without medical treatment or treatment that is considered inadequate to […]

Placebo Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology Volume 225, 2014, pp 217-235 Date: 13 Sep 2014 Abstract Expectancy and learning are the core psychological mechanisms of placebo analgesia. They interact with further psychological processes such as emotions and motivations (e.g., anxiety, desire for relief), somatic focus, or cognitions (e.g., attitudes toward the treatment). The development of placebo […]

BMJ 2014; 348 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g3253 (Published 21 May 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;348:g3253 Karolina Wartolowska Abstract Objective To investigate whether placebo controls should be used in the evaluation of surgical interventions. Design Systematic review. Data sources We searched Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register from their inception to November 2013. Study selection […]

Charles W Gay Chiropractic & Manual Therapies 2014, 22:6 Abstract Over the decades, research into placebo responses has shed light onto several endogenous (i.e. produced from within) mechanisms underlying modulation of pain perception initiated after the administration of inert substances (i.e. placebos). Chiropractors and manual therapists should embrace analgesic-placebo-research in an attempt to maximize clinical […]

Any medical treatment is surrounded by a psychosocial context that affects the therapeutic outcome. If we want to study this psychosocial context, we need to eliminate the specific action of a therapy and to simulate a context that is similar in all respects to that of a real treatment. To do this, a sham treatment (the placebo) is given, but the patient believes it is effective and expects a clinical improvement. The placebo effect, or response, is the outcome after the sham treatment. Therefore, it is important to emphasize that the study of the placebo effect is the study of the psychosocial context around the patient.

Published: Oct 22, 2013 | Updated: Oct 22, 2013 By John Gever Intranasal oxytocin, sometimes called the “love hormone,” intensified the painkilling effect of placebo in a clinical study, suggesting a physical basis for the placebo effect, researchers said. Among 75 healthy young men exposed to painful heat stimuli on their forearms in the randomized, […]

Sham treatments can both reduce pain and increase pleasure, and do so affecting similar circuitry in the brain. By Kerry Grens | October 14, 2013 Full Story:  http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/37876/title/Placebo-s-Double-Whammy/ Expectations give placebos their power, allowing them to dramatically alter our experience of a stimulus. Researchers demonstrate in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today (October 14) that not only […]

Placebo effect is defined as a reduction in symptoms resulting from one’s perception of the therapeutic intervention; this response may be biological and psychological. This paper reviewed quantitative and qualitative findings of how the patient-clinician relationship and the verbal suggestions given for pain relief may influence patients’ perception of a treatment and its outcome.The main […]