Placebo Medicine
Steve Silberman, in Wired: “Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.” Here’s the part of the article I found most fascinating:
In one study, Benedetti found that Alzheimer’s patients with impaired cognitive function get less pain relief from analgesic drugs than normal volunteers do. Using advanced methods of EEG analysis, he discovered that the connections between the patients’ prefrontal lobes and their opioid systems had been damaged. Healthy volunteers feel the benefit of medication plus a placebo boost. Patients who are unable to formulate ideas about the future because of cortical deficits, however, feel only the effect of the drug itself. The experiment suggests that because Alzheimer’s patients don’t get the benefits of anticipating the treatment, they require higher doses of painkillers to experience normal levels of relief.
Comments
Dan McKeown +1
I started to read this article until I realized that I should probably get back to work so I will save it until I get home. However, I am really interested to know more about this.
If I may, while it is not exactly in the same vein, I would recommend checking out Radio Lab’s episode on placebos (Radio Lab is a WNYC production that you can find on their website <radiolab.org> or on itunes). It is amazing how much power your brain has.
Alexander Micek
AHA! I saw that in my Radiolab podcast feed (the only podcast to which I subscribe… because it’s awesome), and I was looking forward to listening. I hope to carve out some time for it this weekend.