[Placebo in the pain treatment]

Abstract

Use of medical preparations having no specific pharmacological activity or dummy procedures administered to patients is known as placebo. Such maneuvers are important in the pain treatment and clinical studies investigating pain mechanisms. Several recent studies have shown that placebo treatment produces measurable psychophysiological effects, characterized by changes in specific brain functions and decreased subjective pain perception. This article reviews changes observed in placebo analgesia, its intensity as compared to active compounds, and principal problems observed during the placebo treatment and in clinical trials.