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Related Concept Videos

The Placebo Effect01:54

The Placebo Effect

The placebo effect occurs when people's expectations or beliefs influence or determine their experience in a given situation. In other words, simply expecting something to happen can actually make it happen.
Blind Procedures02:07

Blind Procedures

Ideally, the people who observe and record the children’s behavior are unaware of who was assigned to the experimental or control group, in order to control for experimenter bias. Experimenter bias refers to the possibility that a researcher’s expectations might skew the results of the study. Remember, conducting an experiment requires a lot of planning, and the people involved in the research project have a vested interest in supporting their hypotheses. If the observers knew which child was...
Blinding01:11

Blinding

Blinding is a commonly used method of not telling participants which treatment a subject is receiving. Blinding is a critical part of a randomized control trial or RCT. It reduces the bias that affects the results. In an RCT, blinding is used in the form of a placebo. A placebo effect occurs when untreated subjects falsely believe they have received the treatment and report improved symptoms. A placebo or a dummy treatment is administered to subjects to negate the bias caused by such an effect.
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Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches

Biopharmaceutical studies constitute a vital field aiming to enhance drug delivery methods and refine therapeutic approaches, drawing upon diverse interdisciplinary knowledge. In research methodologies, the choice between controlled and non-controlled studies significantly influences the study's reliability and accuracy.
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast, controlled...
Hindsight Biases01:12

Hindsight Biases

Hindsight bias leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t. In other words, you knew all along that things would turn out the way they did. Can you relate this to the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20" now?
Bias01:22

Bias

Bias refers to any tendency that prevents a question from being considered unprejudiced. In research, bias occurs when one outcome or answer is selected or encouraged over others in sampling or testing. Bias can occur during any research phase, including study design, data collection, analysis, and publication.
In statistics, a sampling bias is created when a sample is collected from a population, and some members of the population are not as likely to be chosen as others (remember, each member...

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How to Study Placebo Responses in Motion Sickness with a Rotation Chair Paradigm in Healthy Participants
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Published on: December 14, 2014

Hidden assumptions and the placebo effect.

Anthony Campbell1

  • 1ac@acampbell.org.uk

Acupuncture in Medicine : Journal of the British Medical Acupuncture Society
|June 9, 2009
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Acupuncture

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Philosophy of Mind
  • Integrative Medicine

Background:

  • The debate on acupuncture efficacy often hinges on distinguishing specific effects from placebo responses.
  • Underlying this debate is often an implicit Cartesian dualism, separating mind and brain.
  • This philosophical stance influences how acupuncture research is interpreted.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To critically examine the philosophical assumptions in the acupuncture-placebo debate.
  • To reframe the understanding of placebo effects within a neuroscientific framework.
  • To guide acupuncture practitioners in interpreting research findings.

Main Methods:

  • Philosophical analysis of common arguments regarding acupuncture and placebo.
  • Review of contemporary scientific and philosophical consensus on mind-body interaction.
  • Conceptual clarification of 'placebo effects' as neurobiological phenomena.

Main Results:

  • The common view of placebo effects as 'immaterial' or 'spurious' is rooted in outdated dualistic thinking.
  • Modern science and philosophy predominantly view placebo effects as actual brain responses.
  • This neurobiological perspective is crucial for understanding acupuncture research.

Conclusions:

  • Acupuncture's effects, including those attributed to placebo, are best understood as neurobiological events.
  • Rejecting dualism is essential for a scientifically accurate interpretation of acupuncture research.
  • Practitioners should consider placebo effects as brain-based phenomena.