Os efeitos do placebo na dor

Abstract

Clinical studies must be performed in order to a new drug to be approved. During the research, external factors such as emotions and expectations can influence and interfere in the interpretation of the results. As a consequence, different techniques are used trying to exclude this type of interference. The double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial with two arms is the most used technique, considered agolden pattern.The goal of this research is to analyze the data of multiple scientific articles, through a bibliographic review of the mechanism action of the placebo effect on pain. The placebo effect has a big influence on the treatment of diseases because it interferes on the drug therapy. This is why it is necessary to perform comparative studies of the drug and the placebo to guarantee the advantage of the drug therapy. A bibliographic review was performed using scientific articles selected from Pubmed database using the term “effect placebo analgesia”. Through this review it was possible to observe that some regions of the brain may be involved with placebo’s analgesia on μ opioid systems. Other mechanisms, which were not studied yet due to the lack of advanced technologies, can also be involved on the process.