Research has shown that all subjects sensitive to placebo have a similar brain centre structure: neural emotional centers are larger in the right side of the brain and their brains have a somewhat larger sensory cortex in comparison with subjects who haven't responded to placebo. Other than that, personality tests showed similar psychological traits: a high emotional self-awareness and an elevated sensibility to painful situations. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.
Also, it is proven at a neurophysiological level that the use of placebo stimulates the frontal cortex as well as the core of the brain – the grey matter and the amygdala, activating dopaminergic pathways and, in a smaller measure, serotonergic pathways. This activation provokes feelings of relaxation and pleasure which corresponds to an improvement noticed by patients. However, the mechanism of impact of the placebo effect remains to be, in some of its parts, a mystery. What is intriguing in this process is what is seems to be a phenomenon in which abstract thinking effects some very basic and primitive processes which operate in a similar way among animals.
Peter Trimmer, a biologist from the University of Bristol, UK says that it all starter with research that showed that something similar to the placebo effect exists among many animal species. At first sight, this seems to be absurd. Why would an organism, if it can cure itself, wait the placebo's incentive to initiate it? An answer from an evolutionary perspective was offered by a new computer stimulation showing that the defense mechanism has a switch which is under the control of the mind. Trimmer says that there is a simple explanation for such a phenomenon – the process of starting an immune response is so exhausting that a strong and durable incentive might seriously deplete one's energy storages in the organism.
Among a number of recent studies, a research has been carried out among patients who suffer from Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a type of illness which terrorizes a person with alternating constipation and diarrhea. Scientists have told these patients that they will give them a placebo pill made out of an inactive substance which, according to studies, showed a significant improvement through a self-healing relationship between the body and the mind. The result was predictable- a large majority of the patients felt much better.
Also, in another study containing 84 cleaning ladies from 7 hotels researchers wanted to discover if placebo could be used for physical activities. In 4 hotels, the cleaning ladies were told (convinced) that their everyday work fulfills a healthy and active lifestyle. They haven't told anything to the cleaning ladies from the remaining 3 hotels. A month later, they have discovered that the women from the informed group lost, on average, a kilogram in weight, their blood pressure was reduced by almost 10% and were much healthier from the perspective of fat percentage, body mass index as well as the waist to hip ratio.
If you want a better television, you can buy a super mega HD plasma...or invest in placebo effect. A new TV is expensive, but self-deception is free! What is this about? Dutch scientists have carried out an interesting study. Subjects were shown the same video on the same television, but only half of them were told that they can expect a high-resolution image.
To make the matter more convincing, they set up commercial materials and flyers around this group's television screen and have connected it to a very large cable. The second group was told that they would be watching a regular DVD video. Subjects have, predictably, fallen for the trick and have concluded that the image was better on the "HD” screen.
Scientists get all sorts of ideas, but Australian psychologists are especially flaky. Their study has researched the effect of alcohol/placebo on the emotion of sadness and it looked something like this. In the beginning, they divided the subjects in groups that will receive alcohol or placebo (apple juice).