Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32728026›Full record

Trial reportNature communications2020

Placebos without deception reduce self-report and neural measures of emotional distress.

Darwin A Guevarra, Jason S Moser, Tor D Wager, Ethan Kross

Abstract readRandomized Controlled Trial
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Trial report in Nature communications, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
34citing papers in PubMed, 3 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

34 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Darwin A GuevarraDepartment of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 530 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA. guevarra@umich.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5093-355X
Jason S MoserDepartment of Psychology, Michigan State University, 316 Physics Rd., East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA.
Tor D WagerDepartment of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1905 Colorado Ave., Boulder, CO, 80309, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1936-5574
Ethan KrossDepartment of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 530 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8664-2711

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Several recent studies suggest that placebos administered without deception (i.e., non-deceptive placebos) can help people manage a variety of highly distressing clinical disorders and nonclinical impairments. However, whether non-deceptive placebos represent genuine psychobiological effects is unknown. Here we address this issue by demonstrating across two experiments that during a highly arousing negative picture viewing task, non-deceptive placebos reduce both a self-report and neural measure of emotional distress, the late positive potential. These results show that non-deceptive placebo effects are not merely a product of response bias. Additionally, they provide insight into the neural time course of non-deceptive placebo effects on emotional distress and the psychological mechanisms that explain how they function.

Indexed as

Psychological DistressAdolescentElectroencephalographyFemaleHumansMalePlacebosSelf ReportStress, PsychologicalTreatment OutcomeYoung AdultPlacebos

Identifiers

PMID32728026
PMCPMC7391658

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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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.