|
Science Alert - New Research on the Placebo Effect
Written be Michael Lovitch -The Hypnosis Network
You have probably heard about the Placebo effect. We know
new drugs are measured against the placebo effect because
a good percentage of people get better just by taking sugar
pills.
I think a lot of us don't take the time to consider how
crazy this is. Some pretty major health conditions are "cured"
by basically the belief that the pill or injection will
work.
This is obviously power of the mind stuff, but until
recently scientists had never been able to actually "see"
the placebo effect actually working in the brain.
Thanks to Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and
PET scans, researchers can now see the brain work in real
time.
A Very Cool Placebo Study
A researcher named Jon-Kar Zubieta, a neurologist at the
University of Michigan, used some amazing trickery in
order to discover that the driver of placebo effect in the brain
is an area called the nucleus accumbens (NAcc).
What is interesting, (and actually makes sense) is that
this area of the brain is responsible for our expectancy
of reward.
I won't go into too much detail about the actual study (it
involved researchers sticking subjects in the jaw with a
needle to cause pain - OUCH!!!), and then giving them an
intravenous pain cure.
The cure of course was just plain old saline solution (a
placebo).
The PET scans revealed that the placebo caused an
actual dopamine boost with highest dopamine release coming
from the nucleus accumbens (NAcc).
All the subjects experienced some relief, but some more
than others.
So the researchers used fMRI on the same subjects to see
if there was a correlation between those who got the best
placebo effect with those who potentially had the most
active nucleus accumbens (NAcc).
Scientists are tricky! Here is how they pulled it off.
While using fMRI to monitor brain activity, they had the
subjects play a game where they could receive monetary
rewards. The anticipation of reward intensified the
activity in the nucleus accumbens.
A Very Interesting Result
The cool part is that the people who had the highest
activity in the NAcc during the game are the same people who
had the most profound placebo effect in the pain part of
the study.
So it seems that it pays to have an NAcc that hums if you
want to get cured by a sugar pill.
I have been thinking about this study a lot and it begs
this question.
Could we actually train ourselves to enhance our
expectancy of reward, thus strengthening the NA? If so, this might
mean we could develop some ability for self healing.
Or it just might be genetic - nobody knows right now
Here is the citation for the study I just summarized.
Scott et al.: Individual Differences in Reward Responding
Explain Placebo-Induced Expectations and Effects
Publishing in Neuron 55, 325–336, July 19, 2007. DOI
10.1016/j.neuron.2007.06.028.
Responses Wanted
The research is still in its early stages and I would be
curious if any of you have any other real research on the
subject (not new age mumbo jumbo, but real peer reviewed
research).
Michael Lovitch
Co Founder
The Hypnosis Network
817-566-0050
P.S. Here are some other cool facts about the placebo
effect:
*Orange, Red and other hot colored tablets work better as
stimulants.
*Cool colored ones (blue, green, purple) work better as
depressants.
*Big pills generally work better than small pills!
*Higher priced pills work better than lower priced pills.
*Injections work better than tablets
*And "branded" tablets work better than unbranded tablets!
The Hypnosis Network
307 West 7th St, Suite 275
Fort Worth
Texas 76102
United States
Here you can continue typing the post text. This part will be visible only after a click on the post link. | 
