Quote of note:
Zubieta and colleagues examined the effect of deep sustained pain -- produced by a prolonged infusion of 5 percent hypertonic saline into the masseter muscle --with or without a placebo in young male volunteers.
Introducing the placebo was effective in reducing the sensation of pain, the team reports, as evidenced by higher ratings of pain relief and by an increase in the rate of painful stimulus required to maintain the same level of pain.
Placebo effect tied to brain receptor activity
Fri Sep 23, 2005 03:02 PM ET
By Will Boggs, MD
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The activation in the brain of chemical receptors, called mu-opioid receptors, appears to be involved in producing what is known as the "placebo effect," according to a report in The Journal of Neuroscience.
The placebo effect occurs when people are given an inactive drug or therapy, but experience an improvement in their symptoms anyway. Researchers often compare new drugs to placebo to gauge the true benefit of a therapy.
"Placebo effects probably form part of brain mechanisms involved in the resiliency of the organism to respond to environmental events (e.g., injury, etc.) and not biases in reporting," Dr. Jon-Kar Zubieta from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan told Reuters Health. "Further understanding of these mechanisms would help harness them for innovative treatment strategies."
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