How the doctor's words affect the patient's brain
Abstract
Clinicians have long known that context is important in any medical treatment and that the words and attitudes of doctors and nurses can have great impact on the patient. There is now experimental evidence indicating that the medical context influences specific neural systems. The importance of the context is shown by the lesser effectiveness of hidden administrations of analgesics compared with open ones. Because the placebo effect is a context effect, its study has been useful in clarifying this complex issue. There are now several lines of evidence that placebo analgesia is mediated by endogenous opioids and placebo motor improvement by endogenous dopamine. Moreover, a placebo treatment is capable of affecting many brain regions in depressed patients. All these studies, taken together, lead to a neurobiological under-standing of the events occurring in the brain during the interaction between the therapist and his or her patient.
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Specific psychosocial characteristics increase risk for transition from acute to persistent pain or for pain-related disability when pain persists.
“specific psychosocial characteristics place individuals at elevated risk for the transition from acute to persistent pain, or for the development of pain-related disability in the context of a persisting pain condition 15, 22, 28, 29.”
From Evaluating psychosocial contributions to chronic pain outcomes (2018) · cites this paper as [28]
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- Authors
- Benedetti, F.
- Affiliations
- University of Turin (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Benedetti, Fabrizio
- ORCID
- Benedetti, Fabrizio
- Venue
- Evaluation & the Health Professions
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2002-12
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 369-386
- ISSN
- 0163-2787 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3918
- OpenAlex
- W2136000318
- Cited by
- 173
- References
- 67
- Citations by year
- 2025: 5 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 2.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Evaluation & the Health Professions (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Institutional Research Information System University of Turin (University of Turin) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Pain Management and Placebo Effect
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Patient-Provider Communication in Healthcare
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Empathy and Medical Education
- Keywords
- placebo effect, context effects, doctor-patient interaction, endogenous opioids, endogenous dopamine, placebo analgesia, depression
- MeSH terms
- Analgesics, Opioid, Brain Chemistry, Humans, Pain, Physician-Patient Relations, Placebos, Receptors, Opioid, Placebo Effect, Opioid Peptides, Pain Management
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