The Placebo Effect - Is it real or just imagined?

The placebo effect is a huge phenomenon in which patient’s symptoms are alleviated by a non-existent treatment, since the patient believes that they will get better and that the treatment will work. It is almost like healing your body with your mind because you get better since your brain really thinks you are better thanks to the treatment. In H.K Beecher’s study he concluded that 55% of the patients that took the placebo had improvement in their conditions. But when the Institute for Applied Theory and Methodologies in Health Care, in Frieburg, Germany decided to reedo the study done by Beecher they discovered that 66.7 percent of patients conditions inproved naturally and had nothing to do with the placebo, also patients that had the placebo had improvement in their conditions after six days, but they would recover after six days even if they were not given any placebo. Also they found that Beecher stated that patients improved after they were switched form the real medicine to the placebo, but reaserchers found that this was due to the fact that patients were experiencing side effects to the medication. And Beecher did not report the large number of people whos condition worsened due to the placebo, instead he only reported the people whos condition it improved. So in reality there was not evidence of a of the plavebo effect. Some problems experienced with these studies are psychosomatic problems, stress induced and conditioned responses. Although through some studies have concluded that the placebo effect is imaginary, I do believe that it is real. I do think that if in your mind you believe that you are going to get better you will because your mind has the power to influence the rest of your body. After the many videos we watched in class i do believe that there is a lot of evidence to prove that the placebo effect is real. I also believe that religious miracles have more to do with placebos and the power of your mind to heal you than the fact that it is a "miracle".



Sources:
http://www.chiro.org/nutrition/FULL/Debunking_the_Placebo.shtml
http://www.skepdic.com/placebo.html

Are All Memories Alike? #2

I think that this was a very interesting article it had a lot of information and it was a very extensive research but i personally do not believe that recolection of memories have anything to do with your culture, or where you live. I think it is racist to think that personally almost as if saying that one culture is more superior because we have a better memory or because we have superior thinking. I think that everything has to do with the way your are raised, or how your family is and interacts with you. Some families are very united and big and like discussing past events and you begin to piece together memories and maybe you come from a family that is not very close and you cant piece together memories and so you don't really know or remember that far back. I think its wrong to say that cultural differences have anything to do.

Are All Memories Alike? #1

First of all it was no surprise reading that women really are better than men in many more things. I truly believe that women are able to remember more specific things such as faces, events , pictures because i think we put more emotion and we are more attached to everything we do un like men. I also believe that there should have been male scientists involved in the experiment. I also believe that women pay more attention to details therefore we are able to remember faces and other things much easier while i believe men are more focused on the big picture. So i think this was a really great article and i think everyone should read :)

Articles on Memory #3

The Memories You Want To Forget Are The Hardest Ones To Lose



Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Have conducted a study that painful or emotional memories that people would most like to forget may be the toughest to forget especially if they are seen through for example a photograph as opposed to reading it. Other studies of emotional events and forgetting, had studied emotion-laden words "death". This new study did the complete opposite by asking 218 participants to react to photographs instead of text. This proved that a person makes a lot of connections between emotional events and other parts of your life, so it difficult to isolate them, as well as the fact that emotion places limits on the ability to control the contents of the mind. This may be applied to real life for example when you go through a breakup you may want to forget everything that happened but you are still emotionally attached to that person and to everything that the person represented.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070815105026.htm

Articles on Memory #2

The Language Of Emotion: Ad Slogans In Native Tongues Connect To Consumers' Emotions



Stefano Puntoni, Bart de Langhe, and Stijn van Osselaer from Erasmus University located in the Netherlands conducted a very interesting experiment that proved ad slogans that are in a person's native language connects to the consumer on a much higher and emotional level. To conduct this experiment they tested different slogans with participants and found differences in how the messages were perceived. By completing this experiment they were able to find out that native languages tend to be perceived as more emotional than messages expressed in their second language. This has nothing to do with the person's understanding or level of difficulty with the language but most people have personal memories that are usually in that native tongue rather than your second language, therefore a word in the slogan may trigger a memory. Also they found another reason why women are better than man: Women have a much stronger memory for emotional events. This related back to real life because for example i see an ad in my language about enjoying a type a coffee by the fire, this might trigger my memory of spending time with my family during christmas time by the fire and having an amazing time therefore would make me want to buy this coffee to remember these great times.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215111433.htm

Articles on Memory #1

Early Scents Really Do Get 'Etched' In The Brain



This experiment explains that smells may be recorded into your memory, this being either a good or a bad smell. The researchers of the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, Israel, conducted this experiment. These include Yaara Yeshurun, Hadas Lapid, Yadin Dudai, and Noam Sobel. To conduct this experiment the researchers offered adults a visual object along with one, and later with a second, set of pleasurable and distasteful odors and an MRI was imaging sounds while their brains. A week later the researchers presented these same objects inside the MRI and tested partakers association of those images with the scents and smells. By conducting this experiment the researchers concluded that people remembered early links more clearly when they were unpleasant, not considering if they were smelled or heard. The images form the MRI revealed a distinctive activation in particular brain region in the case of their first olfactory association. I believe we can apply this research in real life because since we know and our brain know how something smells we can be able to identify or even prevent something from happening for example knowing how an apple smells since you are allergic it is an unpleasant smell for you because you cant associate it with getting sick, Therefore you avoid anything that smells like apples to prevent.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091105132448.htm

Alzheimer's Disease

More than 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, which is a very sad number. Before watching this video when I though about the disease I only though oh it happens to old people and they forget a lot of things. I had never really realized how serious, shocking and actually very sad Alzheimer’s is. Alzheimer's Disease is a progressive brain disease that very slowly destroys your memory and thinking skills, and people eventually will no longer be able to perform even the simplest tasks. I believe this is one of the saddest things that can happen because you not only become unable to have a normal life but you know that you are loosing your mind, you are loosing your sense of identity and your memories. I think the saddest part is that this disease is irreversible, there is no cure. The video we watched were very sad because we are being able to see into a very intimate part of these people's life, how they are changing and how it not only affect the person but it also affects their loved ones. I believe the most shocking part was when we were introduced to a woman who could not even recognize her own son y it was heart breaking, also the part when she was hallucinating that there was a snake is her wheel chair when there clearly was nothing. Another sad part was when a man who knew he was loosing to Alzheimer’s was talking about how he wanted to kill himself and it was so sad to see his wife listening and crying. I also believe that the people who care for people who have alzheimer's are very strong especially if they are sons/daughter, or spouse because as we saw on the video in class it requires your full attention and its also depressing to see your loved one not recognize you less every single day. People should be more involved in finding a cure for this terrible disease because we never know if we may someday suffer from it.