Placebo Effect Caught on MRI

Not only is the placebo effect becoming stronger, but it's now been imaged for the first time by researchers with fMRI machines. Falk Eippert at the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany led the study:

Later, with an fMRI scanner on, the researchers rubbed "control" and "painkiller" creams onto two different spots on each volunteer's left forearm and applied the same level of heat to each spot, 15 times.

The fake "painkiller" cream worked: volunteers said they experienced 26 per cent less pain on the "painkiller"-treated patch of their arm, compared with the "control"-treated area.

Meanwhile, the fMRI scanner witnessed the placebo effect. When skin treated with the "control" cream was heated, an area of the dorsal horn located on the left side of volunteers' lower necks lit up, suggesting increased neural activity there in response to pain. However, this signal disappeared in the "painkiller" trials.

Link via Popular Science | Image: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Newest 5

Newest 5 Comments

"Before conducting human trials for drugs, pharmaceutical companies are often fully aware of many of the side effects of the products they're testing. So, for instance, if a drug is known to cause dizziness and nausea, the drug company running the test wants the placebo to have the same side effects. And they have an explanation for this. They say the placebo should mimic the drug being tested so that the control group of the experiment will have side effects similar to the placebo group. Without that, they claim, the results of a blind study would be compromised."
Just saying it again, this time I am quoting from Sepp Hesslberger from 'Prescibing a placeo' on Health Supreme. It is not true that placebos do not have side effets, exactly the opposite is true.