B6197 - L'EFFETTO PLACEBO E NOCEBO: MECCANISMI PSICONEUROBIOLOGICI / PSYCHONEUROBIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS IN PLACEBO AND NOCEBO EFFECTS

Academic Year 2024/2025

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Forli
  • Corso: Single cycle degree programme (LMCU) in Medicine and Surgery (cod. 5709)

Learning outcomes

• Understand the fundamental concepts underlying placebo and nocebo effects (i.e., placebo procedure; placebo effect/response; placebo mechanisms); and analyze the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms through which placebo and nocebo effects occur (i.e. individual learning, expectations, beliefs and characteristic, healthcare providers expectations, interpersonal and treatment characteristics, biological correlates). • Investigate the ethical considerations surrounding the use of placebo and nocebo in clinical practice and research. • Pursue innovative thinking and problem-solving skills through practical case studies and group projects and debates. • Foster critical analysis of placebo-controlled clinical trials and their implications for evidence-based medicine.

Course contents

1. History and concepts

2. Assessment of placebo/nocebo effects

3. Placebo/nocebo mechanisms

4. Application of placebos

5. Optimizing placebo effects

6. Minimizing nocebo effects

7. Open- vs. deceptive placebos

8. Ethics and critical evaluation

Readings/Bibliography

https://eduonplacebo.unibo.it/

Teaching methods

Frontal Lecture

Role Playing

Debate

Group exercises aimed at deepening and facilitating learnings on the role of expectations on clinical outcomes

Rewriting treatment information sheets

Assessment methods

Group Activities Results and Discussion

Teaching tools

https://eduonplacebo.unibo.it/

Office hours

See the website of Katia Mattarozzi