ArticleNeuroImage2020
The neural processes of acquiring placebo effects through observation.
Article in NeuroImage, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
26 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Learning by observing: a systematic exploration of modulatory factors and the impact of observationally induced placebo and nocebo effects on treatment outcomes.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Pooled it
- Effect of acupuncture treatment for patients with knee osteoarthritis on brain fluctuation amplitude and functional connectivity: a randomized three-armed fMRI study.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2025Trial
- Understanding fibromyalgia beyond pain: emotional imbalance and the case for compassionate care.RMD open · 2026Review
- Effects of early life adversity on socially learned analgesia and empathy in virtual reality.NPJ digital medicine · 2026Article
- Placebo analgesia persistence: evaluating behavioural stability in repeated trials.Communications biology · 2026Article
- 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
- Context-dependent placebo hypoalgesia through observational learning: the role of empathy in immersive and non-immersive environments.NPJ digital medicine · 2026Article
- Effects of childhood adversity on socially learned placebo analgesia in virtual reality: A cross-sectional study.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Neuropsychological mechanisms of observational learning in human placebo effects.Psychopharmacology · 2025Review
- Expectation generation and its effect on subsequent pain and visual perception.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Placebo and nocebo effect in pain.Handbook of clinical neurology · 2025Review
- The expectations humans have of a pleasurable sensation asymmetrically shape neuronal responses and subjective experiences to hot sauce.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Interpersonal physiological and psychological synchrony predict the social transmission of nocebo hyperalgesia between individuals.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Function and biochemistry of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during placebo analgesia: how the certainty of prior experiences shapes endogenous pain relief.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Article
- Stimulus-independent and stimulus-dependent neural networks underpin placebo analgesia responsiveness in humans.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Cognitive and affective interaction with somatosensory afference in acupuncture-a specific brain response to compound stimulus.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2023Article
- Placebo and nocebo effects: from observation to harnessing and clinical application.Translational psychiatry · 2022Review
- [Seeing others is believing-analgesic placebo effects through observational learning?]Schmerz (Berlin, Germany) · 2022Review
- The neglect of sex: A call to action for including sex as a biological variable in placebo and nocebo research.Contemporary clinical trials · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Learning through social observation is critical for humans. The present study investigates the neural processes underlying the acquisition of placebo effects through observational learning. We created a new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm where participants (n = 38, healthy, both sexes) observed a demonstrator experiencing pain relief by a placebo treatment cream and experiencing pain without a treatment (control cream), and subsequently performed the same procedure themselves. Participants demonstrated placebo hypoalgesia while they performed the procedure themselves, confirming that observational learning can lead to placebo effects. During the observational learning phase, fMRI analysis showed a modulation of the amygdalae, periaqueductal grey, temporoparietal junctions (TPJ), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Connectivity between the DLPFC and TPJ during the observational learning task was modulated by the placebo treatment and predicted subsequent placebo effects. Mediation analysis further confirmed that the DLPFC-TPJ connectivity formally mediated the effect of the observed treatment condition on subsequent placebo effects. Additionally, pre-recorded resting state connectivity between the DLPFC and TPJ also predicted observationally-learned placebo effects. Our findings provide an understanding of the neural processes during the acquisition of placebo effects through observation and indicate a critical role for DLPFC-TPJ integration processes during observational learning of therapeutic outcomes.
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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.