ArticlePsychotherapy and psychosomatics2020
Prior Therapeutic Experiences, Not Expectation Ratings, Predict Placebo Effects: An Experimental Study in Chronic Pain and Healthy Participants.
Article in Psychotherapy and psychosomatics, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 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
41 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Human Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Pain and Pain Modulation: A Review and Activation-Likelihood Estimation Approach.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- To Ask or Not to Ask: Does Inquiring About Participants' Expectations Influence the Placebo Effect? A Placebo Mechanism Study in Healthy Volunteers.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Trial
- Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation for the Treatment of Myoarthropathic Symptoms Associated With Temporomandibular Disorders-A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial.Journal of oral rehabilitation · 2025Trial
- Modulating Placebo Effects in Clinical Trials: Study Team Briefing to Optimize Drug-Placebo Differences.Clinical and translational science · 2025Trial
- It Is Time to Feel Better: How Temporal Information of Placebo Analgesia Affects Our Brain.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Trial
- The Power of a Good Word: Enhancing the Efficacy of Analgesics in Clinical Settings.Psychotherapy and psychosomatics · 2025Trial
- Presenting a sham treatment as personalised increases the placebo effect in a randomised controlled trial.eLife · 2023Trial
- Trial
- Understanding Placebo and Nocebo Responses Based on a Randomized Sham-Controlled Study on Acupuncture in Integrative Cancer Care.Integrative cancer therapiesTrial
- Experimental Pain Research as an Effective Active Learning Method for Pain Education.Journal of dental education · 2026Article
- Article
- The power to adapt: How resilience and changing expectations contribute to placebo effects.The journal of pain · 2026Article
- A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Patient Expectations in Individualised Anaesthesia and Analgesia: A Narrative Review and Future Directions.Journal of personalized medicine · 2026Review
- Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation vs Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation With Music in Persistent Low-Back Pain: Protocol for a Pilot Feasibility Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Illness Expectations and Asthma Symptoms: A 6-Month Longitudinal Study.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2025Article
- Prior therapeutic experiences and treatment expectations are differentially associated with pain-related disability in individuals with chronic pain.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Placebo and nocebo effect in pain.Handbook of clinical neurology · 2025Review
- What should constitute a control condition in psychedelic drug trials?Nature. Mental health · 2024Article
- Transcriptomic Profiles Associated with Experimental Placebo Effects in Chronic Pain.Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
introductionMany clinical trials fail because of placebo responses. Prior therapeutic experiences and patients' expectations may affect the capacity to respond to placebos in chronic disorders.
objectiveThe scope of this study in 763 chronic orofacial pain and healthy study participants was to compare the magnitude and prevalence of placebo effects and determine the putative role of prior therapeutic experiences vs. expectations.
methodsWe tested placebo propensity in a laboratory setting by using 2 distinct levels of individually tailored painful stimulations (high pain and low pain) to reinforce expectations and provide a hypoalgesic experience (conditioning phase). Afterwards, both levels of pain were surreptitiously set at a moderate pain level to test for placebo effects (testing phase). Pain and expectation ratings were assessed as primary outcomes using visual analog scales.
resultsIn both chronic pain and healthy participants, placebo effects were similar in magnitude, with the larger prevalence of responders in the healthy participants. Although chronic pain participants reported higher pain relief expectations, expectations did not account for the occurrence of placebo effects. Rather, prior experience via conditioning strength mediated placebo effects in both pain and healthy participants.
conclusionsThese findings indicate that participants with chronic pain conditions display robust placebo effects that are not mediated by expectations but are instead directly linked to prior therapeutic experiences. This confirms the importance of assessing the therapeutic history while raising questions about the utility of expectation ratings. Future research is needed to enhance prediction of responses to placebos, which will ultimately improve clinical trial designs.
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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.