ArticleNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2023
Neural underpinnings of open-label placebo effects in emotional distress.
Article in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of open-label placebos across populations and outcomes: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Dispositional optimism and open-label placebo responses in hair cortisol concentrations and psychological distress-A randomized controlled trial.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2026Trial
- The role of expectations and tailored feedback on the open-label Placebo effect.Journal of health psychology · 2026Trial
- Experimental Approach to Inducing Anti-Histaminergic Placebo Effects: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Healthy Volunteers.Neuroimmunomodulation · 2026Trial
- Roles of administration route, expectation, and belief in placebos in a randomized controlled trial with open-label placebos.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- A simple alternative to nondeceptive placebos for reducing emotional distress: encouragement.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Trial
- Open-Label Placebo Injection for Chronic Back Pain With Functional Neuroimaging: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2024Trial
- The pill you don't have to take that is still effective: neural correlates of imaginary placebo intake for regulating disgust.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Trial
- Placebo-resistant gut bacteria:Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Trial
- Open-label placebo treatment does not enhance cognitive abilities in healthy volunteers.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- A randomized trial that compared brain activity, efficacy and plausibility of open-label placebo treatment and cognitive repappraisal for reducing emotional distress.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Effects of prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation on open-label placebo responses.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Open-label placebo effects on psychological distress and hair cortisol in a randomized controlled trial - the moderating role of the five-factor personality traits.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- The Programmed Placebo Effect in Patients with Syncope: Preliminary Clinical and Nanostructural Insights with a Hypothetical Quantum-Level Interpretation.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Placebo treatment entails resource-dependent downregulation of negative inputs.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- From catastrophizing to catalyzing: does pain catastrophizing modulate the beneficial impact of open-label placebos for chronic low back pain? A secondary analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Preoperative Anxiolysis and Treatment Expectation (PATE Trial): open-label placebo treatment to reduce preoperative anxiety in female patients undergoing gynecological laparoscopic surgery - study protocol for a bicentric, prospective, randomized-controlled trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Placebo mechanisms in aging: A randomized controlled trial comparing deceptive and open-label placebos on psychological, cognitive, and physical functioning in older adults.International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHPArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
While placebo effects are well-known, research in the last decade revealed intriguing effects that placebos may have beneficial effects even when given without deception. At first glance, this seems paradoxical, but several studies have reported improvements in pain, depression, or anxiety. However, it still remains unclear whether these results represent objective biological effects or simply a bias in response and what neural underpinnings are associated with the open-label placebo effects. In two studies, we address this gap by demonstrating that open-label placebos reduce self-reported emotional distress when viewing highly arousing negative pictures. This reduced emotional distress was associated with an activation of brain areas known to modulate affective states such as the periaqueductal gray, the bilateral anterior hippocampi, and the anterior cingulate cortex. We did not find any prefrontal brain activation. Furthermore, brain activation was not associated with expectation of effects. In contrast, we found that brain responses were linked to general belief in placebos. The results demonstrate that the neural mechanisms of open-label placebo effects are partly identical to the neurobiological underpinnings of conventional placebos, but our study also highlights important differences with respect to a missing engagement of prefrontal brain regions, suggesting that expectation of effects may play a less prominent role in open-label placebos.
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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.