Mechanisms of Placebo Analgesia

It is an everyday experience that cognitive mechanisms modulate pain perception. Although placebo analgesia is one of the most striking examples of cognitive modulation of pain perception, its neural mechanisms are just beginning to be understood. According to pharmacological studies, the endogenous opioid system is essential for placebo analgesia. Recent functional imaging data provides evidence that the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) may represent a crucial control center for this type of endogenous pain control. We therefore hypothesized that placebo analgesia recruits other brain areas outside the…