Research into interventional techniques in managing chronic spinal pain continues to be challenging, mystifying, confusing, and biased. Insight, or lack thereof, into placebo and nocebo phenomena contributes mightily to these difficulties. Unfortunately, placebo-nocebo responses are the subject of numerous controversies and challenges from not only a research perspective, but also clinical pers...

34 This investigation aimed to explore the effects of inert sugar free drinks described as 35 either ‘performance enhancing’ (placebo) or ‘fatigue inducing’ (nocebo) on peak 36 minute power (PMP;W) during incremental arm crank ergometry (ACE). Twelve 37 healthy, non specifically trained individuals volunteered to take part. A single blind 38 randomized controlled trial with repeated measures wa...

A large number of unwanted adverse events and symptoms reported by patients in clinical trials are not caused by the drug provided, since most of adverse events also occur in corresponding placebo groups. These nocebo effects also play a major role in drug discontinuation in clinical practice, negatively affecting treatment efficacy as well as patient adherence and compliance. Experimental and ...

34 This investigation aimed to explore the effects of inert sugar free drinks described as 35 either ‘performance enhancing’ (placebo) or ‘fatigue inducing’ (nocebo) on peak 36 minute power (PMP;W) during incremental arm crank ergometry (ACE). Twelve 37 healthy, non specifically trained individuals volunteered to take part. A single blind 38 randomized controlled trial with repeated measures wa...

While the placebo effect has been studied for a long time, much less is known about its negative counterpart, named the nocebo effect. However, it may be of particular importance because of its impact on the treatment outcomes and public health. We conducted a review on the nocebo effect using PubMed and other databases up to July 2014. The nocebo effect refers by definition to the induction or...

The nocebo effect is a phenomenon that is opposite to the placebo effect, whereby expectation of a negative outcome may lead to the worsening of a symptom. Thus far, its study has been limited by ethical constraints, particularly in patients, as a nocebo procedure is per se stressful and anxiogenic. It basically consists in delivering verbal suggestions of negative outcomes so that the subject ...

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,...

Laboratory research recently has greatly enhanced the understanding of placebo and nocebo effects by identifying specific neuromodulators and brain areas associated with them. However, little progress has been made in translating this knowledge into improved patient care. Here, we discuss the limitations in our knowledge about placebo (and nocebo) effects and the need for translational research...

Conditioning procedures are used in many placebo studies because evidence suggests that conditioning-related placebo responses are usually more robust than those induced by verbal suggestions alone. However, it has not been shown whether there is a causal relation between the number of conditioning trials and the resistance to extinction of placebo and nocebo responses. Here we test the effects...

The dominant theories of human placebo effects rely on a notion that consciously perceptible cues, such as verbal information or distinct stimuli in classical conditioning, provide signals that activate placebo effects. However, growing evidence suggest that behavior can be triggered by stimuli presented outside of conscious awareness. Here, we performed two experiments in which the responses t...