ArticlePain reports
Nocebo and pain: An overview of the psychoneurobiological mechanisms.
Article in Pain reports. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 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
59 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Negative expectations and measurable movement mechanics: a scoping review of the nocebo effect on motor performance.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Mitigating the Nocebo Effect in Biosimilar Use and Switching: A Systematic Review.Pharmaceutical medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Assessing the Effects of Pulsed Electromagnetic Therapy on Painful Diabetic Distal Symmetric Peripheral Neuropathy: A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of diabetes science and technology · 2025Trial
- Positive social modeling attenuates nocebo side effects.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2025Trial
- Nocebo expectations rather than placebo expectations affect topical pain relief: A randomized clinical trial.Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie · 2024Trial
- Preventing adverse events of chemotherapy for gastrointestinal cancer by educating patients about the nocebo effect: a randomized-controlled trial.BMC cancer · 2022Trial
- Placebo and nocebo effects on pain through the lens of the predictive brain: Neurobiological mechanisms and translational implications.Experimental physiology · 2026Review
- Social information creates self-fulfilling prophecies in judgments of pain, vicarious pain, and cognitive effort.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Understanding and leveraging placebo and nocebo effects in perioperative care: a cross-sectional survey of German-speaking anesthesiologists.BMC anesthesiology · 2026Observational
- Placebo and nocebo phenomena in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: a narrative review on current knowledge and potential future directions.Psychological medicine · 2025Review
- Exploring the role of negative expectations and emotions in primary dysmenorrhea: insights from a case-control study.BMC women's health · 2025Article
- Placebo treatment affects brain systems related to affective and cognitive processes, but not nociceptive pain.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Statistical learning shapes pain perception and prediction independently of external cues.eLife · 2024Article
- Risk factors associated with nocebo effects: A review of reviews.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2024Review
- Translating knowledge on placebo and nocebo effects into clinical practice.Pain reports · 2024Article
- Landau model for illustrating the learning and unlearning process of nociplastic pain.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Placebo and nocebo effects of percutaneous needle electrolysis and dry-needling: an intra and inter-treatment sessions analysis of a three-arm randomized double-blinded controlled trial in patients with patellar tendinopathy.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
- Exploratory study of nocebo effect in senior medical students.Health psychology research · 2024Article
- Negative expectations (nocebo phenomenon) in clinical interventions: A scoping review.Journal of education and health promotion · 2024Article
- Socially Acquired Nocebo Effects Generalize but Are Not Attenuated by Choice.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionNocebo effects are defined as adverse events related to negative expectations and learning processes that are involved in the modulation of the descending pain pathways. Research over the last couple of decades has illustrated that behavioral, psychoneurobiological and functional changes occur during nocebo-induced pain processing.
objectivesWe aimed to review published human and non-human research on algesia and hyperalgesia resulting from negative expectations and nocebo effects.
methodsHerein, we searched and comprehensively reviewed scientific literature providing informative knowledge about the psychoneurobiological bases of the nocebo effect in the field of pain with an emphasis on how pain processes are shaped by both cognitive and non-cognitive factors.
resultsNegative expectations are formed through verbal suggestions of heightened pain, prior nociceptive and painful experiences and observation of pain in others. Susceptibility to the nocebo effect can be also influenced by genetic variants, conscious and nonconscious learning processes, personality traits and psychological factors. Moreover, providers' behaviors, environmental cues and the appearance of medical devices can induce negative expectations that dramatically influence pain perception and processing in a variety of pain modalities and patient populations.
conclusionImportantly, we concluded that nocebo studies outline how individual expectations may lead to physiological changes underpinning the central integration and processing of magnified pain signaling. Further research is needed to develop strategies that can identify nocebo-vulnerable pain patients in order to optimize the psychosocial and therapeutic context in which the clinical encounter occurs, with the ultimate purpose of improving clinical outcomes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.