The Anti-Placebo Effect? Essay -- Biology Essays Research Papers

The Anti-Placebo Effect? In my last web paper I struggled with the idea that Melatonin is supposed to make people sleepy. If anything I became more restless. Well, what is that all about? So, in this paper, I decided that I wanted to find out, what that was "about". If you pull it apart, you can tell that it has something to do with the preconceived ideas that we have running around in our heads. So then, I thought, well, that is the placebo effect right? If you think that something, such as a drug or supplement, is supposed to perform a certain way, then even if it is nothing more than a sugar pill some people will have a larger tendency to play out that reaction. This is not a conscious choice. From the little neurobiology background I have, I would venture a guess to say that the preconceived notion of what is supposed to happen acts a triggering signal that would create an change in the membrane permeability of the neuron. And that would in turn cause an action potential and be the beginning of some sort of effect. So to dissect it with my previous example, if we were, theoretically, under the assumption that these Melatonin supplements truly had no effect. The population at large would, through the media and other advertising schemes, be made to believe that this drug supplement would induce sleep. Therefore that notion would lead to changes in the nervous system that were brought about by these beliefs causing a placebo effect. But the heart of my question here is that does this idea work in the other direction? My hypothesis previous to my beginning my research was yes. Not only because the Melatonin did not work for me and family, but because of what we have been discussing in class. If the majority of the fun... ...asstidious approach takes an additive/subtractive approach for defining the boundary line of efficacy." (3) My point would be that your preconceived notions would either serve to enhance or inhibit these effects. Simple, eh? WWW Sources 1)The Powerful Placebo, http://www.press.jhu.edu/press/books/titles/f97/f97shpo.htm 2)The placebo effect, http://skepdic.com/placebo.html 3)Some Thoughts on Efficacy Beyong the Placebo Effect, http://acupuncture.com/Res Other sources to look at: 1. http://dem0nmac.mgh.harvard.edu/neurowebforum/G 2. http://www.temperance.com/nlp-talk/msg00340.html 3.http://www.hup.harvard.edu/S97Books/S97Reviews/placebo.effect.html 4. http://apa.org/releases/placebo.html 5. http://www.newscientist.com/ns/9 6. http://www.altmedicine.com/app/registeruser.cfm 7. http://wings.buffalo.edu/courses/sp99/