Placebo nasal spray protects female participants from experimentally induced sadness and concomitant changes in autonomic arousal

Göhler, Annelie C.; Haas, Julia W.; Sperl, Matthias F.J.; Hermann, Christiane; Winkler, Alexander W.

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2021.07.037

Cited by 10 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 58 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…(2) when combined with positive information, OLP efficacy was moderated by pre-existing differences in well-being at baseline and (3) at least for physical symptoms, there was evidence that the OLP-plus effect was mediated by expectancies regarding improvement, but only among those with higher than average symptoms at baseline. With respect to the first result, the absence of an OLP effect when treatment was administered without information provision is in keeping with previous studies that openly administered treatment in conjunction with limited instruction (Glombiewski et al, 2019;Göhler et al, 2021;Leibowitz et al, 2019;Locher et al, 2017). However, the present study extends this research by demonstrating that OLPs with information provision, but not without, significantly differed from control.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

The role of positive information provision in open‐label placebo effects

Barnes

Babbage

Barker

et al. 2023

Applied Psych Health & Well

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Open label placebos (OLPs) appear generally efficacious among clinical samples, but the empirical evidence regarding their use in non‐clinical and sub‐clinical samples, as well as when administered independent of a convincing rationale, is mixed. Healthy participants (N = 102) were randomised to either a 6‐day course of OLP pills with information provision (OLP‐plus: N = 35), without information provision (OLP‐only: N = 35), or no‐treatment control group (N = 32). OLP pills were described as enhancing physical (symptoms and sleep) and psychological (positive and negative emotional) well‐being. Well‐being was assessed at baseline and on Day 6. Expectancies and adherence were measured. OLP administration interacted with baseline well‐being. The OLP‐plus group demonstrated increased well‐being on all outcomes other than positive emotions, but only when they reported decreased baseline well‐being. OLP‐only and control groups did not differ. The OLP‐plus group demonstrated elevated expectancies, that mediated the OLP effect on physical symptoms relative to control, but only when well‐being was lower than average at baseline (i.e. moderated‐mediation). Results demonstrate the importance of information provided with OLPs. The moderating effect of baseline outcomes may reconcile inconsistent results regarding clinical and non‐clinical samples. Accounting for baseline symptoms in non‐clinical and sub‐clinical samples is likely to enhance our understanding of when OLPs are effective.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

The role of positive information provision in open‐label placebo effects

Barnes

Babbage

Barker

et al. 2023

Applied Psych Health & Well

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Importantly, we also observed a placebo-induced improvement of mood states in addition to the effects on face classification performance. Placebo effects on mood states in healthy individuals have been recently reported in some studies 44 – 46 while others were not able to demonstrate such effects 47 , 48 . Formal models such as the predictive coding framework 49 consider expectations as prior information, which, in a Bayesian sense, are integrated with incoming sensory information (likelihood), to form a percept (posterior) 3 , 50 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Placebo induced expectations of mood enhancement generate a positivity effect in emotional processing

Baker

Gamer

Rauh

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A perceptual bias towards negative emotions is a consistent finding in mood disorders and a major target of therapeutic interventions. Placebo responses in antidepressant treatment are substantial, but it is unclear whether and how underlying expectancy effects can modulate response biases to emotional inputs. In a first attempt to approach this question, we investigated how placebo induced expectation can shape the perception of specific emotional stimuli in healthy individuals. In a controlled cross-over design, positive treatment expectations were induced by verbal instructions and a hidden training manipulation combined with an alleged oxytocin nasal spray before participants performed an emotion classification task on happy and fearful facial expressions with varying intensity. Analyses of response criterion and discrimination ability as derived from emotion-specific psychometric functions demonstrate that expectation specifically lowered participants’ threshold for identifying happy emotions in general, while they became less sensitive to subtle differences in emotional expressions. These indications of a positivity bias were directly correlated with participants’ treatment expectations as well as subjective experiences of treatment effects and went along with a significant mood enhancement. Our findings show that expectations can induce a perceptual positivity effect in healthy individuals which is probably modulated by top-down emotion regulation and which may be able to improve mood state. Clinical implications of these promising results now need to be explored in studies of expectation manipulation in patients with mood disorders.

show abstract

“…There were views indicating that the efficacy of antidepressants is overestimated due to the placebo effect and the subjective measurement of the symptoms and effects in mental health. 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 Since social media also acts as a source of information, such messages presented by healthcare providers on Twitter might communicate a more negative image of antidepressants to patients. It is possible that access to such information may hinder newly diagnosed patients from initiating pharmacotherapies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%