Beedster

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1392675790' post='2371588'] Interesting programme. Obviously they only get a few minutes to dramatise a whole lot of research but one point that struck me during the cycling trial as shown was that there was no real control, or not one that was explained. The programme made a point of including the cyclists saying they would not normally race twice in one day so presumably there was no reference for what their second performance would have been without any pills - placebo or not. We might intuitively think they would all be slower because of tiredness, but that's not quite the same thing as a rigorous scientific trial. Against that background, was the result that about half of the riders performed better during their second race really statistically significant? I'd guess it was, otherwise why make the programme segment, but it wasn't entirely clear - to me at least. A very interesting line of research though - especially the fully disclosed placebo trials. That really is weird! [/quote] Agreed re controls, but in our lab work we use multiple baseline repeated measures designs that take many months to conduct, Horizon had one day to shoot a story about it. The email trail between me "we must do proper science" and them "we must make a programme that gets the message across" is, shall we say, lengthy. In fat, I applaud their patience. All things considered, they were right. Horizon isn't for scientists, it's about engaging people who aren't always able to grasp the niceties of control conditions, statistical significance, type-II error etc, but to whom the subject matter is of relevance even importance (hence Horizon's reliance on a personal case study as opposed to a population level approach). If I'd been the producer it would have been very different programme, but nothing like as useful to the average BBC2 viewer!

[quote name='dincz' timestamp='1392635571' post='2370798'] Does it make sense to talk about the opposite of a placebo? The belief that something is doing you harm? Certainly a known phenomenon but I've never heard it described as occupying the other end of a spectrum including the placebo effect. Just curious. [/quote] The 'nocebo effect', I've seen it in our labs in studies of placebos (e.g., when someone believes they've taken coffee and they also believe that coffee will make them nauseous or edgy) and in studies of nocebos when we've informed people that the placebo will have a bad effect. Two sides of the same coin really [quote name='ShergoldSnickers' timestamp='1392641436' post='2370902'] Will definitely be watching this. There are swathes of discoveries still to be made about the brain and mind, and how they relate to our perception and resulting actions. Excellent. [/quote] The more I study it the less I know about it for certain. The quote below sums it up perfectly and I say something like this to my students in their very first lecture! [quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1392641648' post='2370908'] That reminds me of a favourite quotation: [i]If the human mind was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it.[/i] [/quote] End of story Well not quite, we have learned huge amounts about the brain and its link with mind, and some of this learning has saved lives. However, as a philosophical statement it quite likely holds true

[quote name='jakenewmanbass' timestamp='1392601928' post='2370591'] Made a feature on the BBC website too!! [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26191713"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...health-26191713[/url] [/quote] I suspect that Olly, the director/producer and the guy who wrote that piece, knows more about the placebo effects from his three months of researching it it than I do after 10 years of doing so. One of the real pleasures of doing that programme was working with the Horizon team, top guys.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1392570322' post='2370154'] One aspect of placebo research is the ethical implications. So, for example, it would be unlikely to be deemed ethical to conduct a clinical trial of a cancer drug versus a placebo because it would require the withdrawal of treatment from the placebo group. Fair enough, but I wonder if people would regard it as an ethical issue to run a trial that might prove to someone that, say, their choice of spending tens of thousands of pound on a Hifi system was a waste of money because they only 'thought' it sounded better, which might destroy the effect for them? Having said that, I recall reading somewhere that placebo effects can still be measured even when the person concerned knows they are in the placebo group, which seems very strange indeed. Edit: Found a link to that last point: [url="http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/placebos-work-even-when-you-know-10-12-23/"]http://www.scientifi...-know-10-12-23/[/url] [/quote] Without wishing to plug it too often on here, you'll see quite a lot about that study in [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03wcchn"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...rammes/b03wcchn[/url] tomorrow night

[quote name='GreeneKing' timestamp='1392553478' post='2369918'] What is the placebo effect of a manufacturer's name on an instrument then? [/quote] Funny you should ask Peter http://basschat.co.uk/topic/8436-bass-guitars-and-placebo-effects/ Fender CS v Yamaha.........?

Not bass-related I'm afraid to say. Link to the programme here: [u][u][url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01s6f3f"]Can a placebo make you cycle faster?[/url][/u][/u] And a link to a recent Wales article on our work here (please excuse the awful photo!) [u][u][url="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/researching-performance-enhancing-drugs-6661690"]Can placebos help reduce drug abuse?[/url][/u][/u] I've been researching the placebo effect for 10 years and, for obvious reasons, have had to keep it pretty quiet. There's are some keen science/research minds on this forum, I'm keen to hear your thoughts? C

Nice one GP, enjoy it C

I sell quite a lot of gear and it always amazes me how people contact me in apparent urgency about an item, plague me with PMs and then when I send them the PM with payment details I get no reply Anyway, you can check whether the other member has read the PM on the PM thread itself. If it says that they haven't, they might still have read the email, or read the PM in the pop-up window on the BC homepage when they logged in, so you can't be really sure that they haven't. However, if it says they have read it, then they have, unless of course they opened the PM and just didn't bother to read it!

[quote name='BluRay' timestamp='1391938732' post='2362710'] Apparently you can get a 2024 with maple board... [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/197099-yamaha-bb2024mx-is-mine-the-only-one/"]http://basschat.co.u...e-the-only-one/[/url] [/quote] Which is now living with me