From: The Huffington Post
How Do Placebos Relieve Pain?
The Huffington Post:
Scientists and doctors have been studying placebos for more than half a century. These inert “sugar pills” remain highly controversial, yet they are widely used in clinical treatment today — especially in the area of pain management. So-called “placebo analgesia” has been observed again and again not only in the pain clinic, but also in the neuroscience lab, where scientists have documented a placebo response in the brain’s pain pathways.
Despite this evidence, nobody really understands the psychological processes involved in placebo analgesia.
Presumably the power of these inert substances has something to do with the expectation of relief, but how do expectations translate into basic cognitive processes, like attention and thought?
Read the whole story: The Huffington Post
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Comments
Dear all,
I’m pleased to see that The Science of The Placebo is still alive, reveling the positive part of our mind the one that Freud called the unconscious part of our psyche, and in Darwin’s theory of natural selection was mentioned that; “evolutionary changes comes about through the abundant production of genetic variation in every generation”.
Does this mean that the hidden powers of our unconscious mind and the genetic modulation are the key to the placebo phenomenon?!
If so, then the psychothrapy and CBT are within the reach to deliver this therapeutic effect.
…and just to amuse my self from now on, I’ll ad a new term for the placebo effect… something like; ‘neuro-preselected personality’.
…Looking forward to see more papers on this topic.
Kind regards,
M. Krkac
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