Placebo and Pain

Professor of Biological Psychology and Depatment Chair of Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Dr. Flaten’s reserach focuses on biological psychology, psychology of learning, behavioral medicine, and pain. He serves as a board member for European Psychologist and European Journal of Behavior Analysis and served as Chair for the Organizing Committee of the International Conference on Imaging in Neuroscience 2007-2009. Dr. Flaten chaired the 2011 symposium on placebo and pain at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting.

"…this book functions as a valuable source for developing knowledge and tools to improve educational and treatment approaches…What makes this book outstanding is its arrangement of concepts in an easy-to-read, interesting format. While other books may present similar topics and themes, this one is unprecedented because it is thorough, current, and clinically relevant and demonstrates the authority of its authors in an appealing manner." --Doody.com, March 21, 2014"Colloca…and coeditors Flaten and Meissner present 27 chapters of research examining the placebo effect on pain and the key mechanistic advances and impact of these findings for clinical researchers and health practitioners. Neuroscience, psychology, pain, and other specialists from Europe, Australia, the US, and China describe the mechanisms underlying placebo-induced mediation and modulation of pain, including historical aspects, neurochemistry, animal models,…" --Reference & Research Book News, December 2013

• Preface1. Historical Aspects of Placebo Analgesia2. Neurochemistry of Placebo Analgesia: Opioids, Cannabinoids and Cholecystokinin3. Placebo Analgesia in Rodents4. Molecular Mechanisms of Placebo Responses in Humans5. How Does EEG Contribute to Our Understanding of the Placebo Response?6. Spinal Mechanisms of Placebo Analgesia and Nocebo Hyperalgesia: Descending Inhibitory and Facilitatory Influences7. Spinal and Supraspinal Mechanisms of Placebo Analgesia8. Positive and Negative Emotions and Placebo Analgesia9. Placing Placebo in Normal Brain Function with Neuroimaging10. Brain Predictors of Individual Differences in Placebo Responding11. Placebo Responses, Antagonistic Responses, and Homeostasis12. Placebo Analgesia, Nocebo Hyperalgesia, and Acupuncture13. The Relevance of Placebo and Nocebo Mechanisms for Analgesic Treatments14. How Placebo Responses Are Formed: From Bench to Bedside15. Methodologic Aspects of Placebo Research16. Balanced Placebo Design, Active Placebos, and Other Design Features for Identifying, Minimilizing and Characterizing the Placebo Response17. Psychological Processes that can Bias Responses to Placebo Treatment for Pain18. Against "Placebo." The Case for Changing our Language, adn for the Meaning Response19. Placebo Effects in Complementary and Alternative Medicine: The Self-Healing Response20. Conceptualizations and Magnitudes of Placebo Analgesia Effects Across Meta-Analyses and Experimental Studies21. The Contribution of Desire, Expectation, and Reduced Negative Emotions to Placebo Anti-Hyperalgesia in Irritable Bowel Syndrome22. The Wound that Heals: Placebo, Pain and Surgery23. What Are the Best Placebo Interventions for the Treatment of Pain?24. How Communication between Clinicians and Patients may Impact Pain Perception25. Nocebos in Daily Clinical Practice26. The Potential of the Analgesic Placebo Effect in Clinical Practice - Recommendations for Pain Management27. Placebo and Nocebo: Ethical Challenges and Solutions