Trial reportProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Manipulating placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia by changing brain excitability.
Trial report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 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
26 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation affect explicit but not implicit emotion regulation: a meta-analysis.Behavioral and brain functions : BBF · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled 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
- Independent effects of transcranial direct current stimulation and social influence on pain.Pain · 2025Trial
- Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Targeting Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex and Orbitofrontal Cortex on Somatic Symptoms in Patients With Major Depressive Disorder: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Controlled Clinical Trial.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2024Trial
- Comparison of responders and nonresponders with knee osteoarthritis after transcranial direct current stimulation.Pain management · 2024Trial
- Trial
- Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) over the Left Dorsal Lateral Prefrontal Cortex in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).Neural plasticity · 2021Trial
- Effects of prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation on open-label placebo responses.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Placebo analgesia persistence: evaluating behavioural stability in repeated trials.Communications biology · 2026Article
- A review of descending pain modulation in humans.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Efficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on postoperative pain in patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery: study protocol for a prospective, single-center, randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Direct comparisons of neural activity during placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia between humans and rats.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Assessing the Modulatory Effects of tDCS and Acupuncture on Cerebral Blood Flow in Chronic Low Back Pain Using Arterial Spin Labeling Perfusion Imaging.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- The Placebo Hypoalgesic Response Is Reduced in Healthy Older Adults Showing a Decline in Executive Functioning.Journal of pain research · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
- The Nocebo Effect.Annual review of pharmacology and toxicology · 2024Review
- 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
- The Biology of Placebo and Nocebo Effects on Experimental and Chronic Pain: State of the Art.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
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 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Harnessing placebo and nocebo effects has significant implications for research and medical practice. Placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia, the most well-studied placebo and nocebo effects, are thought to initiate from the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and then trigger the brain's descending pain modulatory system and other pain regulation pathways. Combining repeated transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), an expectancy manipulation model, and functional MRI, we investigated the modulatory effects of anodal and cathodal tDCS at the right DLPFC on placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia using a randomized, double-blind and sham-controlled design. We found that compared with sham tDCS, active tDCS could 1) boost placebo and blunt nocebo effects and 2) modulate brain activity and connectivity associated with placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia. These results provide a basis for mechanistic manipulation of placebo and nocebo effects and may lead to improved clinical outcomes in medical practice.
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.