RP) Placebos and the Brain

[recycled material - first appeared here]

Many benefits of bogus treatments can be chalked up the "the" placebo response. Trouble is, we don't know a whole heck of a lot about placebo responses to treatments. How robust and perhaps even real are they?

In that second sentence I used the plural for placebo response intentionally. For the nature of a placebo response may differ when given as a different treatment for a different illness, etc. When we lump all placebo responses together, we may be combining different types of fruit. So to speak.

A few days ago news of a study into "the" placebo effect for pain control was released. The strongly scientific research looked into the actual brain mechanisms that could be responsible for "placebo analgesia." The release nicely summarizes the background information -

Placebo analgesia refers to an individual's relief from pain following administration of a chemically inert substance and is thought to be due to a person's belief that a potent pain medication was administered. Endogenous opioids, which are naturally produced by the brain in small amounts and play a key role in the relief of pain and anxiety, have been implicated in placebo analgesia. Brain imaging studies have shown that placebo analgesia stimulates release of endogenous opioids from higher brain regions associated with pain modulation and is associated with a decrease in signals from pain-sensitive areas.

In the new study, a drug that blocks opioid signaling, naloxone, was used to determine whether endogenous opioids do indeed play a role.

The researchers found that naloxone reduced behavioral placebo effects as well as placebo-induced decreases in pain-related brain responses. Most importantly, they also observed that, under placebo, cortical areas interacted with brainstem structures implicated in pain control and that these interactions were dependent on endogenous opioids and were related to the strength of experienced placebo effects.

Certainly, the above doesn't close the book on placebo analgesia. But thanks to the research we can more confidently say that this type of placebo does indeed precipitate real changes in the brain.

Is it possible that "heritable psychiatric conditions" (such as autism and depression) in one's family can predispose a person to having an interest in one field of study/career or another?

In an intriguing, though preliminary, bit of research out of Princeton University, it was discovered that there may be such a link:

Students interested in pursuing a major in the humanities or social sciences were twice as likely to report that a family member had a mood disorder or a problem with substance abuse. Students with an interest in science and technical majors, on the other hand, were three times more likely to report a sibling with an ASD, a range of developmental disorders that includes autism and Asperger syndrome. [source]

Hmm. Interesting. But did I find this so interesting simply because I have a number of "wing-nuts" in my family (I'm not getting any more specific than that!), and I likely share their genes? One has to wonder.

More seriously, a reason I find the link plausible is that each human being is born with a unique brain. Each of us has a nervous system that works somewhat differently. Because of that, we have differing responses to events, different preferences for stimulation type and degree, if you will, etc. Why wouldn't our unique nervous systems -- all other things being equal -- influence the field we are drawn to?

Does texting cause a decline in language skills? From the headline to this ScienceDaily news release, you might think so:

Texting Affects Ability to Interpret Words

To affect (with an "a") means to influence. So it seems the new research has shown such an influence. But has it?

Here's what the researcher, Joan Lee, did to collect her data:

The study asked university students about their reading habits, including text messaging, and presented them with a range of words both real and fictitious.

And she found that -

those who texted more were less accepting of new words.

Which is certainly an interesting finding. Though I'd like to know just how less the "less accepting" was.

What this study revealed was a correlation between texting and language skills. For the "texting" variable was not manipulated to discover it's influence on language skills.

And yet a jump was made from correlation to causation. Such as when the report states:

texting has a negative impact on people's linguistic ability

Is the activity of texting really impacting people's linguistic ability? It may be. But from this study -- as far as I can tell -- that conclusion is premature.

Groan. Why the trumpets, why the tinsel?! When discussing and disseminating science news, shouldn't we aspire to be, you know, a little more scientific?

The following release of a science finding strikes me as akin to having a party to celebrate sobriety.

I bet the headline that appeared on my screen last December elicits at least a small groan from most of you:

The mall as a sanctuary: Study finds holiday shopping outlets aren't just shrines to spending

Oh holy kazoos -- is that for real? Alas, it wasn't a parody or a joke. It was "science." In this case, the strongest of the science part was some actual data collected. That said, get ready for another, minor groan:

The researchers conducted 41 in-depth, in-home interviews with Muslims, Jews and Christians in the United States, Israel and Tunisia to examine consumers' behavior when their given religion represents either a majority, minority or immigrant faith.

That 41 number is kinda small, especially considering the three countries of origin and the three religions involved. How could you come to any type of reasonable conclusion from that sample? Not to mention questions about how the subjects were . . . recruited?

Are you ready for some of the actual "finding"? Put down any sharp object you may be holding, because if you slap your forehead you don't want to hurt yourself.

In countries where a religious group was in the majority, the researchers found that the dominant religion experienced "consumption mass hysteria," which led to consequences of debt, drunkenness and overeating.

Wait. Was this study a joke? Have I been duped into attempting to take something seriously that isn't serious? Sadly, it wasn't a joke. But fortunately, I wasn't duped. Were others?

What we have in this study is another case of a little bit of (poor) data being amplified into a supposedly revelatory finding.

A new study has found there are physiological and cognitive differences between people of the political left and right persuasions. What's more . . . well, I'll let the news release headline tell it:

The biology of politics: Liberals roll with the good, conservatives confront the bad

Wow, liberals in their selfish hippy-trippy fashion "roll with the good," while conservatives, in their buttoned-up, business-like fashion "confront the bad."

Hmm. If "confronting the bad" means going after potential threats to national and neighborhood security . . . I guess I could see that. But what's "rolling with the good"? If liberals truly roll with the good, what's behind their concern over hunger and poverty and a slew of social inequalities? Why are they more inclined to spend money to combat the threat of global warming? How is that "rolling with the good"?

Likewise, how is the conservative's penchant for wanting to keep as much of their profits as possible not "rolling with the good"?

Fortunately I read the entire article and discovered what all the fuss was about. Little, actually.

The experiment tracked the reaction of self-reported liberals and conservatives to visual images. And the results:

While liberals' gazes tended to fall upon the pleasant images, such as a beach ball or a bunny rabbit, conservatives clearly focused on the negative images – of an open wound, a crashed car or a dirty toilet, for example.

Okay, that's interesting. The news release, however, not only failed to provide information on two important experimental elements--number of subjects and degree of difference (i.e., what "tended" means)--but it also failed to provide links to that information. Tsk, tsk.

Too often, when some study succeeds in sending a single wood chip flying from a tree of interest, there comes a yell of "timber!" While it may be exciting and entertaining to do so, exaggeration isn't good science.