Work

Reducing clinical trial costs by detecting and measuring the placebo effect and treatment effect using brain imaging.

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: Although the placebo effect is known to have a strong impact on the outcomes of clinical trials, methods for measuring it are limited to physiological observations. We propose a method of localizing, identifying and measuring placebo and treatment-induced networks in the brain using functional neuroimaging. Measuring the relative activation of these "placebo" brain networks serves as a proxy for the placebo effect contained within the variable of interest (depression rating, blood pressure, etc). Analogous to the difference between a paired and unpaired t-test, this allows for a sharp gain in power and reduction in the sample sizes needed in clinical trials, potentially leading to a drastically smaller sample sizes for establishing efficacy, a shorter time-to-market for a drug, and a drastic reduction in the cost of bringing new drugs into the market.

Source: PubMed

Authors: Ariana Anderson, Mark S Cohen

Institution: University of California, Los Angeles

Language: English

Topic: Pain Management and Placebo Effect

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute on Drug Abuse

Awards: Real-Time Automated Detection of Craving States with fMRI and EEG, Comprehensive Training in Neuroimaging Fundamentals and Applications