Patients suffering from chronic pain have limited treatment options and often rely on medications such as opioids, which have harmful side effects and high risks of addiction. A new study in mice, published in the journal Current Biology, suggests a new way to use the placebo effect to treat chronic pain. By activating specific neurons in the brain linked to pain relief, researchers were able to create an environment in which mice associated pain relief with their surroundings, providing a sustained placebo effect.
Fan Wang team study
Fan Wang, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led this research. Wang and her team explored how neurons in the central amygdala could be “reverse-engineered” to mimic the placebo effect, according to a report on Science.org. They conditioned mice, previously affected by chronic chemotherapy-induced pain, to link a particular environment with pain relief. Even when the neural stimulation was removed, the mice continued to show pain relief and displayed a reduction in pain-related behaviors.
The role of pain-suppressing neurons
This placebo effect was achieved without reactivating pain-suppressing neurons, indicating that there is an independent brain mechanism driving this response. The researchers found that the placebo effect also occurred, albeit weaker, when mice were given morphine instead of neural stimulation.
Possible implications for human treatment
Dr Benedict Alter from the University of Pittsburgh says that while there is still a long way to go before this research can be applied to human patients, these findings have significant potential for drug-free treatments.
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