A new study suggests that personality traits can predict how an individual will respond to placebo pain relief when given a painful saline injection into the jaw muscle. People who scored highly for resilience, altruism and straightforwardness, and had low scores for anger and hostility were most likely to report a reduction in pain when given a placebo. These subjects also showed reduced levels of stress hormones and higher release of endogenous opioids during placebo administration.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER
Peciña, M. et al. Personality trait predictors of placebo analgesia and neurobiological correlates. Neuropsychopharmacology 16 Nov 2012 (doi:10.1038/npp.2012.227)
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Jones, R. Placebo and personality. Nat Rev Neurosci 14, 2 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3411
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3411