Parkinson’s Disease Patients Show Improved ‘Reward Learning’ From Placebo Effect.

A placebo used in a study about Parkinson’s disease treatment stimulated learning-related brain activity just as well as the actual Parkinson’s medication, according to researchers from Columbia University and the University of Colorado at Boulder. The details of the new Parkinson’s disease research have been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The study’s findings hold up results from previous studies that found that patients with Parkinson’s disease who have positive expectations of their treatment demonstrate greater improvement in their brains.

Medical News Today calls the findings of the Parkinson’s disease study, “a clear example of how psychology and medicine interact” that demonstrates “the powerful effect of expectation on the brain.”

The researchers compared the results of the game to the fMRI results. They found that the dopamine-rich areas of the participants’ brain were just as active when they took the placebo as when they took the medication. Some holistic practitioners are questioning whether or not the researchers took into account any effect the nutrients in the orange juice itself might have had on the positive results recorded from the placebo part of the study.

The researchers found the results of their placebo-based study significant and full of potential. “Recognizing that expectation and positive emotions matter has the potential to improve the quality of life for Parkinson’s patients, and may also offer clues to how placebos may be effective in treating other types of diseases,” Wager said.

http://www.inquisitr.com/1638425/par...searchers-say/