The Placebo Effect

Astrologers grapple with trying to understand how much of a person's life is Destiny Writ in the Stars and how much is Self Determination. Neurologist/Science Writer Jonah Lehrer has written a very interesting post on his blog about the Placebo Effect which shows from a Scientific viewpoint how the Placebo effect works and subsequently how our Thinking really does affect us very, very strongly. A Scientist was able to locate the spot in the brain that seems to be responsible for this control. Something about how the Prefrontal Cortex which inhibits the emotions (when told to). I suppose that's good old Mars/Aries/1st House symbolism, the Soldier. Those damn Emotions just seem to seep in like Water....

link: //scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/09/the-placebo-effect.php

How does the placebo effect work? Tor Wager, a neuroscientist at Columbia University, gave people painful electrical shocks while they were stuck in an fMRI machine. Half of the subjects were then supplied with a fake pain-relieving cream. As expected, people given the pretend cream said the shocks were significantly less painful. The placebo effect eased their suffering. Wager then imaged the specific parts of the brain that controlled this psychological process. When people were told that they'd just received a pain-relieving cream, their prefrontal cortex responded by inhibiting the activity of the emotional brain areas (like the insula) that normally respond to pain. (Further research suggests that the brain releases endogenous opioids.) However, when the same people were informed that the same cream was "ineffective" at blocking pain, their prefrontal cortex went silent. Because people expected to experience less pain, they ended up experiencing less pain. Their predictions became self-fulfilling prophecies.

What I find most interesting about this experiment is that lots of scientists are currently trying to develop a drug (like D-Cycloserine) that will imitate the real cortical effects of the placebo effect, and reduce the activity of emotional areas (like the insula and anterior cingulate) that respond to pain. So we'll end up having to pay lots of money for a pharmaceutical painkiller (that probably has some side-effects) when we can get similar palliative benefits just from thinking good thoughts. (I've written about some doctors who are trying to harness our conscious thoughts here.)

My only problem with the placebo effect is that it's got such a bad reputation. (We forget, of course, that until the 20th century almost all medicine was nothing but the placebo effect.) When it comes to fixing the brain, thinking that we've been fixed is often medicine enough.

For more on the placebo effect, check out Radio Lab.