Placebo and nocebo effects in the neurological practice

Placebo and nocebo effects in the neurological practice.

Knowledge of placebo and nocebo effects is essential to identify their influence on the results in clinical practice and clinical trials, and thereby properly interpret their results. It is known that the gold standard of clinical trials research is the double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical study. The objective of this review is to distinguish specific from non-specific effects,...

The role of learning in nocebo and placebo effects.

The nocebo effect consists in delivering verbal suggestions of negative outcomes so that the subject expects clinical worsening. Here we show that nocebo suggestions, in which expectation of pain increase is induced, are capable of producing both hyperalgesic and allodynic responses. By extending previous findings on the placebo effect, we investigated the role of learning in the nocebo effect ...

Psychobiological mechanisms of placebo and nocebo effects in antidepressant trials

Placebo, nocebo, and learning mechanisms.

Recent substantial laboratory and theoretical research hints for different learning mechanisms regulating the formation of placebo and nocebo responses. Moreover, psychological and biological variants may play a role as modulators of learning mechanisms underlying placebo and nocebo responses. In this chapter, we present pioneering and recent human and nonhuman research that has impressively in...

Placebo Effects in Neurological Diseases

There is an imperious need of redefining placebo effect in contemporary times. The effects of sham medical intervention, combined with a careful observation of the natural evolution of a disease, could reveal the true efficiency and impact of active drugs. This interest is not driven only by a scientific curiosity, but also by the pragmatic fact that the standard process of approving new medici...