A new study published online in Molecular Psychiatry has found that when physicians effectively relieve their patients' pain, the region of their brain activity mirrored that of a patient experiencing a placebo effect, according to a Popular Science report.
Researchers tricked 18 physicians into believing that either they were relieving their patients' pain or letting them suffer. They then examined their brain activity and determined that the region of their brain associated with the placebo effect was activated when they relieved the patients' pain. Physicians processed the outcome like a reward.
These findings shed new light on the physician-patient relationship and could lead to discovering how this relationship may affect clinical outcomes of the patient, according to a PsychCentral report.
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Researchers tricked 18 physicians into believing that either they were relieving their patients' pain or letting them suffer. They then examined their brain activity and determined that the region of their brain associated with the placebo effect was activated when they relieved the patients' pain. Physicians processed the outcome like a reward.
These findings shed new light on the physician-patient relationship and could lead to discovering how this relationship may affect clinical outcomes of the patient, according to a PsychCentral report.
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