TAPPING THE POWER OF THE PLACEBO

摘要

It looked like a medical miracle, and in a sense it was one. Before undergoing experimental brain surgery for her advanced Parkinson's disease, the patient was so stiff she could barely take a step. A month or two later a TV news magazine filmed the same woman striding easily across the room. The miraculous part is that her operation was a sham. As part of a study of fetal-cell transplantation, researchers had placed her under anesthesia and drilled holes in her skull—but they hadn't placed any new cells in her brain. Her dramatic improvement was due entirely to the placebo response. The study concluded, in fact, that patients receiving the sham procedure benefited almost as much as those who had live fetal cells implanted in their brains.