Apr 8, 2021
Treatment increased hemoglobin, decreased fatigue
Results from a small open-label trial suggested that treatment with an investigational humanized monoclonal antibody may be an effective treatment for cold agglutinin disease, a rare autoimmune hemolytic anemia for which there are no approved therapies.
The 26-week, single-group trial tested intravenous sutimlimab in 24 cold agglutinin patients who had recently undergone transfusions and found infusions of the antibody halted hemolysis, increased hemoglobin levels, and reduced fatigue in more than half of patients.
The composite primary endpoint was a “normalization of hemoglobin level to 12 g or more per deciliter or an increase in hemoglobin level of 2 g or more per deciliter from baseline, without red-cell transfusion or medications prohibited by protocol,” Alexander Röth, MD, of the West German Cancer Center, University Hospital Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen in Essen, Germany, and colleagues reported.
Study provides detailed insight into neural mechanisms underlying placebo effects
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.
Previous studies of this kind have relied on small-scale studies, so until now, researchers did not know if the neural mechanisms underlying placebo effects observed to date would hold up across larger samples. This study represents the first large-scale mega-analysis, which looks at individual participants whole brain images.
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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.
The neuroscience of placebo effects
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.
Previous studies of this kind have relied on small-scale studies, so until now, researchers did not know if the neural mechanisms underlying placebo effects observed to date would hold up across larger samples. This study represents the first large-scale mega-analysis, which looks at individual participants’ whole brain images. It enabled researchers to look at parts of the brain that they did not have sufficient resolution to look at in the past. The analysis was comprised of 20 neur