Educational Workshop on Placebo Effect

About the Workshop

The conference will be accompanied by the Educational Workshop on Placebo Effect (EWPE). The Workshop is primarily designed for psychiatry and neurology residents and clinical psychologists in training, however students and interested professionals are welcome to attend as well.

The Workshop will cover a wide array of topics spread over three sessions, time-coordinated with the scientific programme of the SNC'13, to enable EWPE participants' attendance at plenary talks and their socialising with the SNC'13 participants during the lunch break by the posters.

Background of the Educational Workshop on Placebo Effect

Placebo response is often defined as an improvement in a subject's state and function, brought about by an inherently inert substance or intervention, purposefully used to elicit such a response through deceit. However, when so defined the response to placebo inevitably yields a large explanatory gap and an even larger ethical dilemma.

Over the last two decades new research approaches have contributed significantly to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the placebo response. The aim of the Educational Workshop is to present and discuss some of the recent findings that allow us to redefine and reappraise the response to placebo. This new understanding may lead to better designs of new treatment studies as well as to added therapeutic benefit in clinical practice, thus possibly resolving both the explanatory gap and the ethical dilemma.

Core Programme of the Educational Workshop (Lectures)

(Work in small groups planned during all three days for pre-registered applicants only.)

Saturday, 28 September 2013

8:30 - 10:30
Session I INTRODUCTION TO THE PLACEBO EFFECT

Maja Bresjanac
Definition, research methods, and overview of the workshop

Fabrizio Benedetti
General mechanisms across (patho)physiological conditions

14:30 - 16:30
Session II MECHANISMS IN SPECIFIC CONDITIONS

Elisa Carlino
Pain

Elisa Frisaldi
Parkinson disease

Bettina Doering
Depression

Antonella Pollo
Physical performance

17:00 - 19:00
Session III CLINICAL AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS

Paul Enck
Use of placebo in clinical trials

Zvezdan Pirtošek
Use of placebo in clinical practice

Jože Trontelj
Ethical guidelines on the use of placebo in clinical research and practice

19:00 - 20:30

Neuroscience and Society Event: Ethical challenges in exploring and exploiting the response to placebo

Please revisit this page for any further refinements of the programme to be announced in the future, or follow the news on programme updates on Twitter.

Page last updated: Friday, September 20^th 2013