The mysterious workings of the Placebo Effect have taken a new twist. A research team from Lingnan University, Hong Kong, and The University of Toledo, US, have found, by experiment, that a placebo cream (that’s to say a faux medical cream with absolutely no active ingredients) can be quite effective even when it’s not used. “We […]
Tag: Pain
The farmer, his neuropathic pain and the cow fence
Documented improbable electrical treatments for pain relief are not restricted to shocks from the Nile Catfish. ‘An interesting Case’ is described by Professor Jock Murray of the Division of Neurology, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada, in which he relates the bespoke treatment that a Canadian farmer had developed for alleviating constant pain in his leg. […]
The analgesic effects of dancing in synch (study)
Can dancing to PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’ in sync with other dancers act as a kind of ‘analgesic ’ – by raising your threshold to pain? A 2016 research project from the Department of Experimental Psychology, at the University of Oxford, UK, suggested that the answer might be ‘Yes’. A suite of somewhat painful [*see notes] […]
“Swearing helps us battle pain – no matter what language we curse in”
A replication (with Japanese-language speakers and English-language speakers) of the Ig Nobel Peace Prize-winning experiment (with only English-language speakers) about swearing and pain, described by one of the researchers, in The Conversation: Swearing helps us battle pain – no matter what language we curse in The new study is “Swearing as a response to pain: A […]