Placebo studies
Placebo studies is an interdisciplinary academic discipline concerning the study of the placebo effect. Clinical placebo studies suggest that expectation effects may play a significant role; one specific case being the clinical trials of major depressive disorder (MDD). Alongside major depressive disorder, placebos have been argued to produce clinical improvement in the management of pain, Parkinson's disease, and some immunological disorders.
Background
The idea of a "placebo effect" in modern parlance can be traced to aninfluential 1955 study entitled The Powerful Placebo firmly established the idea that placebo effects were clinically important, and were a result of . Concepts such as regression to the mean were not accounted for, and reassessments of the source data have found no evidence of any placebo effect. Subsequent research has found that placebos have no impact on diseases; they can only affect the person's perception of their own condition. In this experiment approximately 162 postoperative patients were observed for significant pain relief from subcutaneous injections of placebo and morphine.
In 1957, a team led by Wolf at Cornell University Medical School conducted an experiment to determine the reliability of the placebo response within the placebo study. The conclusion produced the answer to be "the likelihood of predicting placebo responses was not enhanced by increasing the number of placebo tests performed on any individual."
Studies on the role of placebos in Parkinson's disease have provided insight into the neurobiological mechanisms by which a placebo acts. Placebos have been found to improve motor control symptoms in individuals with Parkison's disease by causing the brain to release dopamine. Furthermore, the size of the effect depends on the patient's expectation of improvement, and larger dopamine release can be conditioned through prior exposure.
Further reading
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Background
The idea of a "placebo effect" in modern parlance can be traced to aninfluential 1955 study entitled The Powerful Placebo firmly established the idea that placebo effects were clinically important, and were a result of . Concepts such as regression to the mean were not accounted for, and reassessments of the source data have found no evidence of any placebo effect. Subsequent research has found that placebos have no impact on diseases; they can only affect the person's perception of their own condition. In this experiment approximately 162 postoperative patients were observed for significant pain relief from subcutaneous injections of placebo and morphine.
In 1957, a team led by Wolf at Cornell University Medical School conducted an experiment to determine the reliability of the placebo response within the placebo study. The conclusion produced the answer to be "the likelihood of predicting placebo responses was not enhanced by increasing the number of placebo tests performed on any individual."
Studies on the role of placebos in Parkinson's disease have provided insight into the neurobiological mechanisms by which a placebo acts. Placebos have been found to improve motor control symptoms in individuals with Parkison's disease by causing the brain to release dopamine. Furthermore, the size of the effect depends on the patient's expectation of improvement, and larger dopamine release can be conditioned through prior exposure.
Further reading
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