Are All Placebo Effects Equal? Placebo Pills, Sham Acupuncture, Cue Conditioning and Their Association
Placebo treatments and healing rituals have been used to treat pain throughout history. The present within-subject crossover study examines the variability in individual responses to placebo treatment with verbal suggestion and visual cue conditioning by investigating whether responses to different...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Public Library of Science
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81227 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7615-8440 |
| _version_ | 1826195133239918592 |
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| author | Kong, Jian Spaeth, Rosa Cook, Amanda Kirsch, Irving Claggett, Brian Smoller, Jordan W. Kaptchuk, Ted J. Vangel, Mark G. Gollub, Randy Lyanne |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Medical Engineering & Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Medical Engineering & Science Kong, Jian Spaeth, Rosa Cook, Amanda Kirsch, Irving Claggett, Brian Smoller, Jordan W. Kaptchuk, Ted J. Vangel, Mark G. Gollub, Randy Lyanne |
| author_sort | Kong, Jian |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Placebo treatments and healing rituals have been used to treat pain throughout history. The present within-subject crossover study examines the variability in individual responses to placebo treatment with verbal suggestion and visual cue conditioning by investigating whether responses to different types of placebo treatment, as well as conditioning responses, correlate with one another. Secondarily, this study also examines whether responses to sham acupuncture correlate with responses to genuine acupuncture. Healthy subjects were recruited to participate in two sequential experiments. Experiment one is a five-session crossover study. In each session, subjects received one of four treatments: placebo pills (described as Tylenol), sham acupuncture, genuine acupuncture, or no treatment rest control condition. Before and after each treatment, paired with a verbal suggestion of positive effect, each subject's pain threshold, pain tolerance, and pain ratings to calibrated heat pain were measured. At least 14 days after completing experiment one, all subjects were invited to participate in experiment two, during which their analgesic responses to conditioned visual cues were tested. Forty-eight healthy subjects completed experiment one, and 45 completed experiment two. The results showed significantly different effects of genuine acupuncture, placebo pill and rest control on pain threshold. There was no significant association between placebo pills, sham acupuncture and cue conditioning effects, indicating that individuals may respond to unique healing rituals in different ways. This outcome suggests that placebo response may be a complex behavioral phenomenon that has properties that comprise a state, rather than a trait characteristic. This could explain the difficulty of detecting a signature for “placebo responders.” However, a significant association was found between the genuine and sham acupuncture treatments, implying that the non-specific effects of acupuncture may contribute to the analgesic effect observed in genuine acupuncture analgesia. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:07:42Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/81227 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:07:42Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/812272022-09-26T15:52:57Z Are All Placebo Effects Equal? Placebo Pills, Sham Acupuncture, Cue Conditioning and Their Association Kong, Jian Spaeth, Rosa Cook, Amanda Kirsch, Irving Claggett, Brian Smoller, Jordan W. Kaptchuk, Ted J. Vangel, Mark G. Gollub, Randy Lyanne Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Medical Engineering & Science Martinos Imaging Center (McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT) Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT Vangel, Mark G. Gollub, Randy Lyanne Placebo treatments and healing rituals have been used to treat pain throughout history. The present within-subject crossover study examines the variability in individual responses to placebo treatment with verbal suggestion and visual cue conditioning by investigating whether responses to different types of placebo treatment, as well as conditioning responses, correlate with one another. Secondarily, this study also examines whether responses to sham acupuncture correlate with responses to genuine acupuncture. Healthy subjects were recruited to participate in two sequential experiments. Experiment one is a five-session crossover study. In each session, subjects received one of four treatments: placebo pills (described as Tylenol), sham acupuncture, genuine acupuncture, or no treatment rest control condition. Before and after each treatment, paired with a verbal suggestion of positive effect, each subject's pain threshold, pain tolerance, and pain ratings to calibrated heat pain were measured. At least 14 days after completing experiment one, all subjects were invited to participate in experiment two, during which their analgesic responses to conditioned visual cues were tested. Forty-eight healthy subjects completed experiment one, and 45 completed experiment two. The results showed significantly different effects of genuine acupuncture, placebo pill and rest control on pain threshold. There was no significant association between placebo pills, sham acupuncture and cue conditioning effects, indicating that individuals may respond to unique healing rituals in different ways. This outcome suggests that placebo response may be a complex behavioral phenomenon that has properties that comprise a state, rather than a trait characteristic. This could explain the difficulty of detecting a signature for “placebo responders.” However, a significant association was found between the genuine and sham acupuncture treatments, implying that the non-specific effects of acupuncture may contribute to the analgesic effect observed in genuine acupuncture analgesia. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (U.S.) (R01AT005280) 2013-09-30T12:54:50Z 2013-09-30T12:54:50Z 2013-07 2013-02 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1932-6203 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81227 Kong, Jian, Rosa Spaeth, Amanda Cook, Irving Kirsch, Brian Claggett, Mark Vangel, Randy L. Gollub, Jordan W. Smoller, and Ted J. Kaptchuk. “Are All Placebo Effects Equal? Placebo Pills, Sham Acupuncture, Cue Conditioning and Their Association.” Edited by Sam Eldabe. PLoS ONE 8, no. 7 (July 31, 2013): e67485. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7615-8440 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067485 PLoS ONE Creative Commons Attribution http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ application/pdf Public Library of Science PLoS |
| spellingShingle | Kong, Jian Spaeth, Rosa Cook, Amanda Kirsch, Irving Claggett, Brian Smoller, Jordan W. Kaptchuk, Ted J. Vangel, Mark G. Gollub, Randy Lyanne Are All Placebo Effects Equal? Placebo Pills, Sham Acupuncture, Cue Conditioning and Their Association |
| title | Are All Placebo Effects Equal? Placebo Pills, Sham Acupuncture, Cue Conditioning and Their Association |
| title_full | Are All Placebo Effects Equal? Placebo Pills, Sham Acupuncture, Cue Conditioning and Their Association |
| title_fullStr | Are All Placebo Effects Equal? Placebo Pills, Sham Acupuncture, Cue Conditioning and Their Association |
| title_full_unstemmed | Are All Placebo Effects Equal? Placebo Pills, Sham Acupuncture, Cue Conditioning and Their Association |
| title_short | Are All Placebo Effects Equal? Placebo Pills, Sham Acupuncture, Cue Conditioning and Their Association |
| title_sort | are all placebo effects equal placebo pills sham acupuncture cue conditioning and their association |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81227 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7615-8440 |
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