Placebo: From Pain and Analgesia to Preferences and Products
Published 11/1/2005
Author: David Borsook and Lino Becerra
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Executive Summary
This article evaluates parallels between the placebo response/effect of a product (as demonstrated by Shiv, Carmon, and Ariely 2005) and the domain in which there is the greatest knowledge base, namely, pain and analgesia. That the placebo response has profound effects on behavior has been observed in other domains of neurobiology, including the immune system. Broader applications and manifestations of the placebo effect are not surprising, but placed in the context of marketing, these have significant implications for understanding the neurobiology of human behavior through new perspectives. The opportunities for the integration of social sciences, such as marketing, with neurobiology offers exciting new and novel research domains.
Biography
David Borsook received his MD and doctoral degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is a board-certified neurologist and a pain specialist. He is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is the former Director of the Pain Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital and is now Director of the P.A.I.N. Group at McLean Hospital. His current work focuses on mapping circuits in pain and analgesia, including motivational and emotional processing of aversive (pain) and rewarding (analgesia) stimuli. His articles have been published in Neuron, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Neurophysiology, Molecular Endocrinology, Pain, American Journal of Physiology, Journal of Neurochemistry, Anesthesia and Analgesia, and Journal of Neurobiology. He is also a reviewer for several scientific journals. He has participated in several national and international initiatives in pain, including the World Health Organization’s program on cancer pain in China.
Lino Becerra received his doctoral degree from the University of Illinois. He is a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. He is Codirector of the P.A.I.N. Group at McLean Hospital. His research focuses on the application of new imaging modalities and techniques and the development of new analytical methodologies for the study of pain and analgesia. His research has been published in Neuron, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Neurophysiology, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Journal of Magnetic Resonance, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review B, and Journal of Physical Chemistry.
J Marketing Research, Volume 42, Number 4, November 2005
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