德国的一个研究团队发现，疼痛治疗的信念可有效地降低脊髓的一个叫做背角的区域中的疼痛信号的传递。该研究在10月16日的《科学》杂志报道了。在本期的Brevium中，Falk Eippert及其同僚应用功能性核磁共振成像（或称fMRI）来观察志愿者中脊髓活动的变化。这些志愿者以为他们在参加一项麻醉性油膏的试验。
研究人员在志愿者的前臂上施予了会造成痛感的热刺激，并将认为他们的手臂已经接受利多卡因油膏治疗或是以为接受一种无活性的"对照用"油膏治疗时的志愿者的脊髓反应进行了比较。（实际情况是，这两种治疗油膏是相同的，它们都是无药理活性的油膏。） 结果显示，当志愿者认为他们所接受的是利多卡因油膏的治疗时，其脊髓背角中的神经元活动会有所下降。 因此，这些发现为安慰剂效应的产生至少有部分是因为从脑部下降至脊髓的疼痛抑制系统受到激活的这一假说提供了直接的证据。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Science 16 October 2009:DOI: 10.1126/science.1180142
Direct Evidence for Spinal Cord Involvement in Placebo Analgesia
Falk Eippert,1,* Jürgen Finsterbusch,1 Ulrike Bingel,2 Christian Büchel1
Placebo analgesia is a prime example of the impact that psychological factors have on pain perception. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging of the human spinal cord to test the hypothesis that placebo analgesia results in a reduction of nociceptive processing in the spinal cord. In line with behavioral data that show decreased pain responses under placebo, pain-related activity in the spinal cord is strongly reduced under placebo. These results provide direct evidence for spinal inhibition as one mechanism of placebo analgesia and highlight that psychological factors can act on the earliest stages of pain processing in the central nervous system.
1 Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany.
2 Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany.
