How can we tell if a depression treatment works beyond placebo? A new real-world method measuring placebo shows that ...

Increasing activity in a deep-brain region can boost the immune system’s response to vaccines—and people can be trained to do ...

A newly identified brain pathway in mice could explain why placebos, or interventions designed to have no therapeutic effect, still relieve pain. Developing drugs that target this pathway may lead to ...

Over the past month or so, I have seen several advertisements for different modalities for pain relief. Seeing these advertisements, which featured devices such as TENS units and ultrasound machines, ...

When you were a child and fell playing outside, a single bandage — a placebo of sorts — could take away the pain. The placebo effect has long been somewhat of a medical mystery. While researchers ...

Catarina Craveiro, a biomedical research technician from Lisbon, had been hobbled by lower back pain from scoliosis since ...

In a first-of-its-kind human trial, researchers have demonstrated that consciously activating the brain’s reward system (when ...

Almost everyone is familiar with the placebo effect. Patients who believe they have received an effective remedy tend to feel better and show improvement, even when the remedy is a sham treatment or ...

There is a saying in medicine that goes double for psychiatry: "You shall not lie." So the question is: Is it possible to prescribe a placebo without lying? There are two kinds of placebo: a pure ...

Taking placebo pills fully aware that they contain no active pharmacological ingredients can still significantly reduce stress, anxiety and depression according to a new study. It’s suggested that ...

Depression is one of the most widespread mental health disorders worldwide, affecting approximately 4% of the global ...

Laura holds a Master's in Experimental Neuroscience and a Bachelor's in Biology from Imperial College London. Her areas of expertise include health, medicine, psychology, and neuroscience.View full ...