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The Placebo Effect

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 6, 2026

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

Modulating Placebo Effects in Clinical Trials: Study Team Briefing to Optimize Drug-Placebo Differences.

Martin Coenen^1,2, Ulrike Bingel³, Maria Soledad Berdaguer^1,2

¹Clinical Study Core Unit, Study Center Bonn (SZB), University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany.

Clinical and Translational Science

|November 13, 2025

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Briefing study teams on placebo effects did not alter pain relief or expectations in clinical trials. Training teams to maximize or minimize placebo responses showed no significant impact on analgesia outcomes.

Keywords:

analgesic therapy placebo effect placebo response study team

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Area of Science:

Clinical Pharmacology
Pain Management
Research Methodology

Background:

Placebo effects in clinical trials can obscure true drug efficacy.
Understanding and mitigating placebo responses is crucial for accurate trial results.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if briefing study team members on placebo mechanisms influences patient analgesia.
To assess the impact of study team training on placebo effects and treatment expectations.

Main Methods:

A randomized study comparing oxycodone and placebo analgesia in three groups (untrained, trained to maximize placebo, trained to minimize placebo).
Pain reduction was measured using the visual analog scale during a cold pressor test.
Treatment expectations were assessed alongside pain reduction outcomes.

Main Results:

Oxycodone and placebo showed expected differences in pain reduction across all groups.
Study team briefing did not significantly alter pain reduction or treatment expectations.
Treatment expectations were higher with oxycodone than placebo, correlating with treatment effect possibly due to unblinding from adverse events.

Conclusions:

Brief training of study teams may be insufficient to modify treatment expectations and placebo analgesia.
Future research should explore optimized methods to incorporate placebo knowledge into clinical trial design.
Findings inform strategies for improving blinded trial design and drug treatment evaluation.