ArticleNature communications2024
Placebo treatment affects brain systems related to affective and cognitive processes, but not nociceptive pain.
Article in Nature communications, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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
27 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Brain Association Studies in 2024: A Systematic Review of Sample Sizes and Preregistrations.Psychophysiology · 2026Pooled it
- Cognitive training in neurological disorders: meta-analytic evidence for behavioral gains and neural correlates.Behavioral and brain functions : BBF · 2026Pooled it
- Mindfulness Meditation and Placebo Modulate Distinct Multivariate Neural Signatures to Reduce Pain.Biological psychiatry · 2025Trial
- Review
- Top-down control of the descending pain modulatory system drives multimodal placebo analgesia.Neuron · 2026Article
- Similarities and differences in the late-onset GM2 gangliosidoses: Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff diseases.Journal of neurology · 2026Article
- Ketamine-induced analgesia and dissociation show distinct behavioral and neural correlates.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- The Placebo Effect in Rare Disease Clinical Trials: Measurement, Impact, and Statistical Approaches for Patient-as-Own-Control Designs.Clinical and translational science · 2026Review
- Reconsidering Placebo Effects in Neuromodulation for Parkinson's Disease: Lessons for Clinical Trials and Therapeutic Translation.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Beyond device parameters: psychological predictors of spinal cord stimulation success and their neurobiological mechanisms-a narrative review.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Healing vs. hurting words: the power of language in pain perception-a narrative review.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- The Eco-Friendly Preparation of Se, Zn, and Ag MONPs and Their Current Medical Applications and Drug Delivery for AD Diseases.TheScientificWorldJournal · 2026Review
- From mechanisms to meanings: toward a content-sensitive psychiatry.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- A Replicable and Generalizable Neuroimaging-Based Indicator of Pain Sensitivity Across Individuals.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- The High-Risk Model of Threat Perception Modulates Learning of Placebo and Nocebo Effects and Functional Somatic Disorders.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Unraveling Microstructural and Macrostructural Brain Age Dynamics in Multiple Sclerosis.Neurology(R) neuroimmunology & neuroinflammation · 2025Article
- Isolating Brain Mechanisms of Expectancy Effects on Pain: Cue-Based Stimulus Expectancies versus Placebo-Based Treatment Expectancies.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Similarities and Differences in the Late-Onset GM2 Gangliosidoses: Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff Diseases.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Expectation generation and its effect on subsequent pain and visual perception.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Deep Learning Cerebellar Magnetic Resonance Imaging Segmentation in Late-Onset GM2 Gangliosidosis: Implications for Phenotype.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Drug treatments for pain often do not outperform placebo, and a better understanding of placebo mechanisms is needed to improve treatment development and clinical practice. In a large-scale fMRI study (N = 392) with pre-registered analyses, we tested whether placebo analgesic treatment modulates nociceptive processes, and whether its effects generalize from conditioned to unconditioned pain modalities. Placebo treatment caused robust analgesia in conditioned thermal pain that generalized to unconditioned mechanical pain. However, placebo did not decrease pain-related fMRI activity in brain measures linked to nociceptive pain, including the Neurologic Pain Signature (NPS) and spinothalamic pathway regions, with strong support for null effects in Bayes Factor analyses. In addition, surprisingly, placebo increased activity in some spinothalamic regions for unconditioned mechanical pain. In contrast, placebo reduced activity in a neuromarker associated with higher-level contributions to pain, the Stimulus Intensity Independent Pain Signature (SIIPS), and affected activity in brain regions related to motivation and value, in both pain modalities. Individual differences in behavioral analgesia were correlated with neural changes in both modalities. Our results indicate that cognitive and affective processes primarily drive placebo analgesia, and show the potential of neuromarkers for separating treatment influences on nociception from influences on evaluative processes.
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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.