Placebo pain relief works differently across the human body, study finds
- medicalxpress.com language
- 2025-08-29 02:10 event
- 3 weeks ago schedule

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Russia's invasion of Ukraine has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, and injured hundreds of thousands more. But the war has also taken a less visible toll, with millions suffering from acute PTSD. Now a study co-authored at UC Berkeley proposes that use of the psychedelic MDMA, under close clinical supervision, could bring relief to millions of patients—with fewer therapists, lower costs and better results than conventional care.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits dengue virus has mostly been considered an urban mosquito, but a new study of rural communities in the Peruvian Amazon suggests that pattern appears to be shifting.
Former tennis star Monica Seles has revealed she has been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, a rare autoimmune condition that affects how the muscles work. The multiple Grand Slam champion says she was actually diagnosed three years ago after experiencing trouble with her vision and weakness in her arms and legs.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered the most compelling evidence to date that girls present with different symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than boys—highlighting the need for new and innovative approaches to improve diagnostic practices.
In recent years, fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, has been a main contributor to the opioid crisis. One of the worst adverse effects of fentanyl abuse is opioid-induced cardiac arrest. Although it is well known that opioid abuse can induce arrhythmias, the effects of fentanyl abuse on heart rhythms have not yet been thoroughly investigated.
A panel convened in July 2025 by the Food and Drug Administration sparked controversy by casting doubt about the safety of commonly used antidepressants during pregnancy. But it also raised the broader issue of how little is known about the safety of many medications used in pregnancy, considering the implications for both mother and child—and how understudied this topic is.
Doctors have long relied on measurements like body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratios to assess health risks. However, researchers are increasingly focusing their attention on an unexpected indicator: neck circumference.
Research led by the Indiana University School of Medicine and the University of Florida reports an association between taking GLP-1 receptor agonists and lower overall cancer risk in adults with obesity or overweight, with a reduced risk for ovarian cancer and a possible increased risk of kidney cancer.
Biomedical engineers at Duke University have successfully conducted experiments to treat damage caused by heart attacks in nonhuman primates using gene therapy for the first time.
Researchers from the University of Sydney have used placebo pain relief to uncover a map-like system in the brainstem that controls pain differently depending on where it's felt in the body. The findings may pave the way for safer, more targeted treatments for chronic pain that don't rely on opioids.
For African American patients undergoing mastectomy, the risk of complications and the postoperative appearance of the breast are among the important drivers of preferences for breast reconstruction, reports a study in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
Tuberculosis has been a scourge upon humanity throughout history. In killing more than a million each year worldwide, it remains the leading cause of death from a single infectious pathogen.
A new study has found that blood pressure synchronizes to predictable phrase structures in music. Blood pressure was more affected by loudness than tempo and was more strongly influenced by phrase structures that were more predictable.
Eight years ago, 87 obese adolescents took part in a study to see whether fecal transfer (taking "good" gut bacteria from healthy donors and giving them in capsule form to people with a less healthy microbiome) would make a difference to their health and weight.
Could a keto diet affect males differently than females? A study from The University of Texas Health Science at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) suggests so, and estrogen could promote different protections against adverse effects of the diet, like the accumulation of cells expressing markers of age (senescence).
In a new study published in the Journal of Hepatology, researchers from the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget) show that only 15–20% of hepatocytes in newborn mice—dubbed clonogenic hepatocytes—are responsible for generating over 90% of the adult liver mass.
A study conducted by researchers from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center (PBRC, United States), Proteimax Biotechnology (Israel), and the University of São Paulo's Biomedical Sciences Institute (ICB-USP, Brazil) has shown that ingesting Pep19 helps reduce visceral fat and improve sleep in obese adults.
Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death in men. Most patients who are diagnosed during earlier stages usually respond well to treatment. In some, however, the disease progresses to an aggressive, lethal form.
A multi-institutional clinical trial conducted at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and 21 other U.S. sites found that a single administration of autologous tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) cell therapy helped stabilize metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) in some patients. This finding is significant, as many of these patients had previously undergone multiple treatments without success.