The brain activity of pain relief during hypnosis and placebo treatment

Abstract

Placebo treatment and hypnosis are both examples of top-down regulation and are used to treat pain. However, it is unclear whether hypnosis produces anything more than a placebo effect when measuring brain activity changes. This literature review examines research articles published from 1997 onwards regarding the neurophysiology of pain relief during hypnosis or placebo treatments using functional brain imaging (fMRI or PET). The focus was on acute produced nociceptive pain. There seems to be both similarities and clear differences in the brain activity changes between hypnosis and placebo treatments. These results show that hypnosis is not equal to common placebo in terms of brain activity thus questioning the suggestion that the pain reducing properties of hypnosis are just one form of placebo effect.