“If the placebo effect operates by fooling the brain, why does it require deception if the brain can supposedly resolve the problem independently?”

Question

“If the placebo effect operates by fooling the brain, why does it require deception if the brain can supposedly resolve the problem independently?”

In: Biology

Answer 1

Because what you THINK matters.

You’re not just fooling the person’s brain, your fooling the person’s mental state. What usually happens is Your BRAIN is influencing YOU, but when putting someone under placebo, you are forcing the person to influence their brain.

Think about it like this: If I were to throw sand at you, and your hands are tied, what do you do? You tense up and close eyes. Why? Because you anticipate the sand coming in, you aren’t telling your body to tense up, but its doing it anyways because of the anticipation.

If I were to emotionally throw sand at you, and you didn’t know it was fake movement, you will still do the same things, because of anticipation.

Similarly with Placebo, the person “believed” that they have taken the pill, and is basically telling the brain: “bro, change is coming” and the brain preps the body for the change.