ArticlePain2014
Expectations and positive emotional feelings accompany reductions in ongoing and evoked neuropathic pain following placebo interventions.
Article in Pain, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 93 citations in OpenAlex.
- [Systematic review of the effectiveness of local anaesthetics in the treatment of neuropathic pain or phantom pain].Die Anaesthesiologie · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of empathic and positive communication in healthcare consultations: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2018Pooled it
- Topical RM191A gel for chronic peripheral neuropathic pain: randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover pilot study.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Trial
- Placebo response varies between different types of sham acupuncture: A randomized double-blind trial in neck pain patients.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2022Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Placebo Effect on Pain-Related Autonomic Responses in a State of Experimentally-Induced Sensitization.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Observational
- Neuropsychological mechanisms of observational learning in human placebo effects.Psychopharmacology · 2025Review
- Clinical neuroscience and neurobiology of placebo and nocebo effects.International review of neurobiology · 2025Review
- What should constitute a control condition in psychedelic drug trials?Nature. Mental health · 2024Article
- Examining the association of vaccine-related mindsets and post-vaccination antibody response, side effects, and affective outcomes.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2024Article
- Reverse-engineering placebo analgesia.Current biology : CB · 2024Article
- Transcriptomic Profiles Associated with Experimental Placebo Effects in Chronic Pain.Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics · 2024Article
- Article
- Challenges and opportunities in translational pain research - An opinion paper of the working group on translational pain research of the European pain federation (EFIC).European journal of pain (London, England) · 2021Article
- The American Society of Pain and Neuroscience (ASPN) Practical Guidelines to Study Design and Scientific Manuscript Preparation in Neuromodulation.Journal of pain research · 2021Review
- The Impact of Expectation for Pain Relief on Orofacial Pain Treatment Outcomes.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- [Placebo effects in pain therapy].Der Nervenarzt · 2020Review
- Attitudes and Perceptions Toward Authorized Deception: A Pilot Comparison of Healthy Controls and Fibromyalgia Patients.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2020Article
- Failure of Placebo Analgesia Model in Rats with Inflammatory Pain.Neuroscience bulletin · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Research on placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia has primarily included healthy subjects or acute pain patients, and it is unknown whether these effects can be obtained in ongoing pain in patients with chronic pain caused by an identifiable nerve injury. Eighteen patients with postthoracotomy neuropathic pain were exposed to placebo and nocebo manipulations, in which they received open and hidden administrations of pain-relieving (lidocaine) or pain-inducing (capsaicin) treatment controlled for the natural history of pain. Immediately after the open administration, patients rated their expected pain levels on a mechanical visual analogue scale (M-VAS). They also reported their emotional feelings via a quantitative/qualitative experiential method. Subsequently, patients rated their ongoing pain levels on the M-VAS and underwent quantitative sensory testing of evoked pain (brush, pinprick, area of hyperalgesia, wind-up-like pain). There was a significant placebo effect on both ongoing (P=.009 to .019) and evoked neuropathic pain (P=.0005 to .053). Expected pain levels accounted for significant amounts of the variance in ongoing (53.4%) and evoked pain (up to 34.5%) after the open lidocaine administration. Furthermore, patients reported high levels of positive and low levels of negative emotional feelings in the placebo condition compared with the nocebo condition (P⩽.001). Pain increases during nocebo were nonsignificant (P=.394 to 1.000). To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate placebo effects in ongoing neuropathic pain. It provides further evidence for placebo-induced reduction in hyperalgesia and suggests that patients' expectations coexist with emotional feelings about treatments.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.