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IMAGE: fMRI activity during pain is reduced in the areas shown in blue. Many of these are involved in constructing the experience of pain, including the feeling of suffering, and motivating. view more
Credit: Image provided by M.Zunhammer et al.
A large proportion of the benefit that a person gets from taking a real drug or receiving a treatment to alleviate pain is due to an individual s mindset, not to the drug itself. Understanding the neural mechanisms driving this placebo effect has been a longstanding question. A meta-analysis published in
Nature Communications finds that placebo treatments to reduce pain, known as placebo analgesia, reduce pain-related activity in multiple areas of the brain.
Emma was on holiday with her family two days before she developed Bell s palsy
Have you heard of Bell’s palsy? I certainly hadn’t, until it paralysed one side of my face.
My eldest son and I were in the garden in our pyjamas, picking blackberries. It was a lovely summer’s morning and we’d just come home from a family holiday in France.
My husband, Will, was taking photos of us but I couldn’t smile properly. It was the strangest feeling. I ignored it, as busy mums of small children often do with things concerning themselves, but the right side of my face felt heavier and when I looked in the mirror, my eyebrow had dropped and my mouth was lopsided.
Researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine and elsewhere have identified a new drug that could prevent AD by modulating, rather than inhibiting, a key enzyme involved in forming amyloid plaques.