DeepSummary
The episode discusses placebo effects, nocebo effects, and belief effects - phenomena where our expectations and beliefs can influence biological and psychological processes. The prefrontal cortex plays a key role in generating these effects by forming expectations about outcomes, which then trigger changes in areas of the brain controlling functions like hormone release, pain perception, and the stress response. Specific examples are provided, such as placebo effects increasing dopamine release in Parkinson's patients and causing changes in growth hormone and cortisol levels.
Placebo effects are biologically real, acting through neurotransmitters, hormones, and neural pathways, but have limits - they cannot directly eliminate tumors, for instance. Context and level of invasiveness strongly influence the magnitude of placebo effects. Some individuals are more susceptible due to genetic factors like variants in the COMT gene regulating dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine.
Overall, the placebo effect demonstrates the power of expectations and mindsets to shape our physiology and psychology through real biological mechanisms. Understanding these effects could lead to leveraging them alongside traditional treatments to improve mental health, physical health, and performance outcomes.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Placebo effects, nocebo effects, and belief effects describe how our expectations and mindsets can generate real physiological changes through the prefrontal cortex's influence on neurotransmitters, hormones, and other biological processes.
- These effects work through established neural circuits connecting the prefrontal cortex to regions like the hypothalamus that control core functions like heart rate, blood pressure, and hormone release.
- Context and perceptions shape placebo response magnitudes, with factors like branding, treatment invasiveness, and psychological conditioning playing roles.
- Placebo effects have limits and cannot directly impact processes like tumor reduction, but can modulate treatment side effects.
- Individual genetic variation, like differences in the COMT gene regulating dopamine and related neurotransmitters, contributes to variability in placebo responsiveness across people.
- Understanding placebo, nocebo, and belief effects opens potential for leveraging them alongside standard treatments to improve outcomes for mental health, physical health, and performance enhancement.
- These phenomena demonstrate the profound mind-body connection and how cognition and biology fundamentally interact through the brain's predictive capabilities.
- Foundational to these effects are the prefrontal cortex's context evaluation abilities, which integrate information to shape expectations that then initiate biological changes.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “Placebo, nocibo, and belief effect actually change the way your biology, your physiology works. In fact, you have neural circuits within your brain that are dedicated to how your expectation of what will happen actually changes some of the most core biological functions within your brain and body, modifying, for instance, heart rate, blood pressure, the release of specific neuromodulators such as dopamine and adrenaline, and so powerfully so that these types of effects can actually work, along with traditional drug treatments or behavioral treatments, in order to vastly change the way that your brain and body work.“ by Andrew Huberman
- “So throughout today's episode, I've been talking about how knowledge, your belief, and understanding about what might happen, ought to happen, or very likely will happen, influences whether or not that thing actually happens. The so called placebo effect, or belief effect or mindset effect, and what I hope I've made clear during the course of our discussion is that while placebo effects arrive through our cognitive understanding of what might, ought to, or is likely to happen, the downstream effects the effects on asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, insulin, growth hormone pick your favorite biological system essentially every system within the brain and body has been shown to be susceptible to placebo effects.“ by Andrew Huberman
- “Now, modern science has now taught us that if you look at the genomes, the genes that happen to be expressed in one individual versus the next versus the next versus the next, there are certain genes, not a lot of them, but there are certain genes that seem to correlate with certain types of placebo effect being greater or lesser in certain individuals.“ by Andrew Huberman
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Episode Information
Huberman Lab
Scicomm Media
3/4/24
In this episode, I discuss placebo and belief and mindset effects — all of which exert a powerful and real influence on our biology and psychology. I discuss how your beliefs and expectation that a certain outcome will occur after taking a substance (or any intervention cause genuine changes in brain and bodily function. I discuss how placebos can change neurotransmitter and hormone release, pain levels, whether the stress response is beneficial or detrimental and more. I also explain how placebo effects can work with traditional drug or behavioral treatments to help improve health outcomes and why some people are more susceptible to placebo effects. By the end of the episode, listeners will understand the placebo effect, how it works, and how beliefs and mindsets can be leveraged toward mental health, physical health, and performance goals.
For show notes, including referenced articles and additional resources, please visit hubermanlab.com.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) Placebo Effects
(00:02:40) Sponsors: Eight Sleep, AeroPress & Levels
(00:07:24) Placebo, Nocebo vs. Belief Effect, Prefrontal Cortex
(00:14:03) Dopamine, Placebo & Parkinson’s Disease; Placebo Controls
(00:21:36) Hormone Release & Placebo Effect, Paired Associations
(00:28:52) Conditioning Effect & Insulin; Pavlovian Response
(00:32:50) Sponsor: AG1
(00:34:17) Context & Expectations; Placebo Effect & Brain
(00:40:51) Cancer, Mind-Body Practices; Placebo Effects & Limits
(00:44:54) Asthma, Specificity & Placebo Effects
(00:48:01) Sponsor: InsideTracker
(00:49:03) Nicotine & Dose-Dependent Placebo Effects
(00:55:31) Placebo Effects vs. Belief Effects, Food & Mindset
(01:01:02) Exercise & Belief Effects
(01:04:08) Placebo Effect, Brain & Stress Response
(01:11:18) Individual Variation, Genetics & Placebo Effect
(01:16:11) Zero-Cost Support, Spotify & Apple Reviews, YouTube Feedback, Sponsors, Momentous, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter