Placebos without deception reduce self-report and neural measures of emotional distress

Darwin A. Guevarra (), Jason S. Moser, Tor D. Wager and Ethan Kross
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Darwin A. Guevarra: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Jason S. Moser: Michigan State University
Tor D. Wager: University of Colorado, Boulder
Ethan Kross: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Several recent studies suggest that placebos administered without deception (i.e., non-deceptive placebos) can help people manage a variety of highly distressing clinical disorders and nonclinical impairments. However, whether non-deceptive placebos represent genuine psychobiological effects is unknown. Here we address this issue by demonstrating across two experiments that during a highly arousing negative picture viewing task, non-deceptive placebos reduce both a self-report and neural measure of emotional distress, the late positive potential. These results show that non-deceptive placebo effects are not merely a product of response bias. Additionally, they provide insight into the neural time course of non-deceptive placebo effects on emotional distress and the psychological mechanisms that explain how they function.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17654-y

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