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The placebo response in pain and depression: in search of a common pathway
Joachim F Wernicke1, Melissa J Ossanna
1Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN 46285, USA. jfwernicke@lilly.com
Abstract:
The placebo effect has been extensively studied in many disease states, some of the most notable being pain and depression. Utilizing a Medline search, studies were identified that reported on areas of the brain shown to be involved in either placebo analgesia or mood response. This paper presents a distillation of this research, in an effort to identify a common "placebo pathway" between mood and pain. Placebo-related responses to both analgesia and relief from depression were reported to be associated with an increase in activity in the frontal cortex and a decrease in activity in the thalamus.
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