Dec 3, 2021
Luana Colloca, MD, Ph.D., MS, is a physician-scientist,
professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, Director of the
TL1 program, Chair of the Pain and Placebo Special Interest Group
for the International Association for Study of Pain Society (IASP),
and steering member and treasurer for the Society for
Interdisciplinary Studies of Placebo (SIPS). Prof. Colloca holds an
MD, a Ph.D. in Neuroscience, and a masters in Bioethics.
She completed a post-doc training at the Karolinska Institute
in Stockholm, Sweden, and a senior research fellowship at the
National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, USA. Prof. Colloca
received several prestigious awards such as the IASP Wall Patrick
Award for basic research on pain mechanisms. Prof Colloca leads an
NIH-funded research portfolio on endogenous pain modulation
including placebo/nocebo effects and other nonpharmacological
interventions such as virtual reality at the School of Nursing,
University of Maryland, Baltimore.
We talk about the placebo effect and its evil twin, the nocebo
effect, and the dicey ethical territory that comes with
recommending an intervention that you know only works if the
placebo effect occurs. We also discuss the ethical dilemma of the
nocebo effect, in which we prime patients to feel more pain by
warning them about impending pain.