Oxytocin and the social facilitation of placebo effects

Significant clinical improvement is often observed in patients who receive placebo treatment in randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials. While a proportion of this “improvement” reflects experimental design limitations (e.g., reliance on subjective outcomes, unbalanced groups, reporting bi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Molecular psychiatry 2022-06, Vol.27 (6), p.2640-2649
Main Authors: Itskovich, Elena, Bowling, Daniel L., Garner, Joseph P., Parker, Karen J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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Behavioral Sciences
Biological Psychology
Clinical trials
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Neurosciences
Oxytocin
Patients
Pharmacotherapy
Placebo effect
Placebos
Psychiatry
Reinforcement
Review Article
Social facilitation
Social factors
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Summary:Significant clinical improvement is often observed in patients who receive placebo treatment in randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials. While a proportion of this “improvement” reflects experimental design limitations (e.g., reliance on subjective outcomes, unbalanced groups, reporting biases), some of it reflects genuine improvement corroborated by physiological change. Converging evidence across diverse medical conditions suggests that clinically-relevant benefits from placebo treatment are associated with the activation of brain reward circuits. In parallel, evidence has accumulated showing that such benefits are facilitated by clinicians that demonstrate warmth and proficiency during interactions with patients. Here, we integrate research on these neural and social aspects of placebo effects with evidence linking oxytocin and social reward to advance a neurobiological account for the social facilitation of placebo effects. This account frames oxytocin as a key mediator of treatment success across a wide-spectrum of interventions that increase social connectedness, thereby providing a biological basis for assessing this fundamental non-specific element of medical care.
ISSN:1359-4184
1476-5578
DOI:10.1038/s41380-022-01515-9