Intro Flashcards
Def: Placebo Effect
A positive effect produced by a sham treatment that cannot be attributed to the properties of the treatment itself and therefore must be due to the patients belief in the treatment
Q-ray Ionized bracelet
-claims to reduce pain by increasing flow of bioenergy
-Test study run on her dad determined that he subjectively did have a decrease in pain while wearing the bracelet despite study’s conduct that determined there the bracelet has no physical effect
Angina Placebo study
-Angina patients assigned to ligation surgery or sham surgery at random
-Both groups saw no results in ECG tracings
-Sham patients reported to fell a benefit from surgery over ligation patients
-Sham patients acted as if they were cured through a decreased consumption of nitroglycerin for pain and an increase tolerance to exercise
How do PET scans work
- Positron-emitting radionucleotide injected into the body
- radionucleotide binds to receptor
- breakdown of radionucleotide produces positron
- positron collides with electron emitting gamma ray allowing detection
What does PET stand for
Positron Emission Tomography
What affects binding potential
-Number of available receptors
-Affinity for the receptor
What radionucleotide is used for dopamine receptors
[11C]Raclopride (RAC)
Parkinson’s patients placebo experiment
-Some patients received Apomorphine which mimics dopamine
-some received saline (salt water)
-No difference seen in treatment vs sham
-Dopamine activity increased for those who believed the treatment had worked
What is the affect of increased dopamine on Parkinson’s disease
decreases symptoms as dopamine is involved in movement
Personality type impact on heart disease study
-Found individual that fit type A, B and C personalities
-The type A individuals were all senior partners
-Type B were mostly accountants
-Type C were unemployed and blind
-all male
-Took ECG recordings to determine heart disease
-Took info on lifestyle factors and genetic risk
-Results showed that type A was much high without considering that type A also smoked more and consumed more alcohol
Why are their limitations in studies involving personality
personality is a hypothetical construct
MMR vaccine relation to Autisum
-Jenny McCarthy falsely attributed that her sons autism was caused by the MMR vaccine
-People trusted her statement and stopped getting the vaccine, allowing cases of the measles to rise
-Wakefield produced a fraudulent study claiming of a correlation based on subjective interviewing on events 4 years prior
-His study also contained a very small sample size and no control group or blinding
-was funded by anti-vaccine corporations
