Researchers at the University of Oxford in the UK and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg (Germany) used brain imaging to see how thoughts, feelings and experiences of the past a person can have a significant impact on the effectiveness of drugs. The results of their work is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The authors explain that if a patient participates in a clinical trial or receiving treatment in a medical office, a drug with proven biological effects may appear ineffective if an individual is conditioned to make this happen.
The researchers suggest that neural activity in certain brain areas could be controlled as a way of assessing how well a drug is working for a particular patient. Although doctors know that the beliefs and expectations of a person can influence the effectiveness of a drug, there has been little research to clarify the brain mechanisms that control how different expectations actually interact with the biological effects of drugs.
; The scientists, led by Ulrike Bingel, use the functional magnetic resonance imaging or MRI to examine how bleak or optimistic predictions of a pain treatment alters brain activity in a group of healthy people. The researchers put
advanced thermal stimulator, a device used to induce and assess pain in the laboratory, the lower leg of each volunteer. Before administering a painkiller called remifentamilo participants, the researchers said some of them that the drug would have no effect, other than diminish the pain sensation and some worsening the pain.
those who hoped that the drug had no effect disturbed, these individuals experienced double relief than those who did not expect the drug benefit, but this group actually did get some relief. On the other hand, those hoping that the drug worsened the pain reported that pain had not changed.
examining the brain scans of volunteers, researchers found that the expectation of increased pain was accompanied by increased activation of neurons in the hippocampus, mid-cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex, brain areas that mediate mood and anxiety. A much lower activity was observed in these regions in individuals who expected remifentamilo reduce the pain.
addition, researchers found more neural activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and the striatum of individuals optimistic. Activity in these regions indicates that the mechanisms resulting from the inhibition of pain were involved, making it more difficult than the pain signals from accessing the spinal cord and brain.
Carla Gallo
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