Expectation contributes to placebo and nocebo responses in Parkinson's disease (PD). While there is evidence for expectation-induced modulations of bradykinesia, little is known about the impact of expectation on resting tremor. Subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) improves cardinal PD motor symptoms including tremor whereas impairment of verbal fluency (VF) has been observed ...

Background Social observation is one of the main ways to gain experience. Similar to first-person experience, observational experience affects the effectiveness of subsequent treatments. Yet, it is still undetermined whether the influence of social observation on placebo and nocebo effects to subsequent treatments remains even if related experience occurred a few days ago. Methods Eighty-two ...

Nocebo effects can be acquired by verbal suggestion, but it is unknown whether they can be induced through observational learning and whether they are influenced by factors known to influence pain perception, such as pain anxiety or pain catastrophizing. Eighty-five female students (aged 22.5 ± 4.4 years) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Participants in the control condition (...

Placebo and nocebo effects are embodied psycho-neurobiological responses capable of modulating pain and producing changes at different neurobiological, body at perceptual and cognitive levels. These modifications are triggered by different contextual factors (CFs) presented in the therapeutic encounter between patient and healthcare providers, such as healing rituals and signs. The CFs directly...

Placebo and nocebo effects are essential components of medical practice and efficacy research, and can be regarded as a special case of context learning. A fundamental function of the central nervous system is to configure the way in which previous learned context becomes linked to corresponding responses. These responses could be either automatic procedures with little flexibility or highly ad...

OBJECTIVE The objectives of the study were to determine the impact of nocebo effects on adverse events (AEs) in drug trials in fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) and painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN). METHODS MEDLINE, CENTRAL, SCOPUS, and the databases of the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America were searched until December 31, 20...

The present evidence illustrates that the placebo effect depends on a variety of neurochemical and neurophysiological mechanisms, which are measurable and modifiable. However, the placebo response is inexorably tied to the treatment context. All medical treatments take place in a particular context; this context includes the therapist's attitudes, psychosocial factors affecting the therapeutic ...

Computational modeling of emotion, physiology and personality is a major challenge in order to design believable virtual humans. These factors have an impact on both the individual behavior and the collective one. This requires to take into account the empathy phenomenon. Furthermore, in a crisis simulation context where the virtual humans can be contaminated by radiological or chemical substan...

CONTEXT Placebo and nocebo effects, the therapeutic and adverse effects, respectively, of inert substances or sham procedures, represent serious confounds in the evaluation of therapeutic interventions. They are also an example of cognitive processes, particularly expectations, capable of influencing physiology. OBJECTIVE To examine the contribution of 2 different neurotransmitters, the endog...