Placebo Effects

He received the Medical Doctor (MD) degree in 1981 from the University of Turin Medical School. In 1984, he received a Silbert International Award from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). In the 1980s and 1990s, he worked in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA and was a visiting professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Texas in Dallas. He has been Professor of Neurophysiology and Human Physiology at the University of Turin Medical School since 1999. He has been a member of the six-strong group on placebo of the Mind-Brain-Behavior Initiative at Harvard University, and a consultant for the Placebo Project at the US National Institute of Health. He has been nominated a member of the Academy of Europe and of the European Dana Alliance for the Brain. His current scientific interests are the placebo effect across diseases, pain in dementia, and intraoperative neurophysiology for mapping the human brain.

PART 1: GENERAL CONCEPTS AND MECHANISMS ; 1. The traditional concept of placebo ; 2. A modern view of placebo and placebo-related effects ; 3. Placing placebo effects within the context of the doctor-patient relationship ; PART 2: DISEASE-BASED CLASSIFICATION OF PLACEBO EFFECTS - MOST STUDIED CONDITIONS ; 4. Pain ; 5. Diseases of the nervous system ; 6. Mental and behavioural disorders ; 7. Immune and endocrine systems ; PART 3: DISEASE-BASED CLASSIFICATION OF PLACEBO EFFECTS - LESS STUDIED CONDITIONS ; 8. Cardiovascular and respiratory system ; 9. Gastrointestinal and genitourinary disorders ; 10. Special medical conditions and therapeutic interventions ; PART 4: CLINICAL, ETHICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS ; 11. Clinical-ethical implications and applications ; 12. How to run a placebo study: A closer look into complex experimental designs ; PART 5: BEYOND THE HEALING CONTEXT ; 13. Physical and cognitive performance ; 14. Halo effects