Recent research has shown that the placebo effect isn’t just psychological—it’s physiological. Several things happen when you take a placebo, including anxiety reduction, pain suppression, or the activation of reward centers in the brain, which might make you feel better. When you think about it, a placebo can be a beautiful thing. Why wouldn’t you want to feel better without having to pay for real medicine (which might also come with annoying side effects)?
Hence, it would be nice to be able to figure out who, exactly, is most susceptible to the placebo effect, since not everyone feels great after a course of sugar pills. Led by Kathryn Hall of Harvard Medical School, a group of scientists reviewed previous research for evidence of a genetic variation in the placebo effect by looking for correlations between certain genetic mutations and the strength of a person’s placebo response. Common genetic mutations called Single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, have been implicated in changing the placebo response in clinical trials. Hall and her team found 11 of these SNPs to be associated with the placebo response in previous research, including those in the dopamine system (the brain’s reward system), the serotonin system (which deals with mood), and the opioid andcannabinoid systems (which both deal with pain).
With this evidence, it’s looking like the placebo response is even more complicated than we thought.
via Mental Floss
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