Sharing pain and relief: neural correlates of physicians during treatment of patients.
Mol Psychiatry
; 19(3): 392-8, 2014 Mar.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-23358155
ABSTRACT
Patient-physician interactions significantly contribute to placebo effects and clinical outcomes. While the neural correlates of placebo responses have been studied in patients, the neurobiology of the clinician during treatment is unknown. This study investigated physicians' brain activations during patient-physician interaction while the patient was experiencing pain, including a 'treatment', 'no-treatment' and 'control' condition. Here, we demonstrate that physicians activated brain regions previously implicated in expectancy for pain-relief and increased attention during treatment of patients, including the right ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. The physician's ability to take the patients' perspective correlated with increased brain activations in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, a region that has been associated with processing of reward and subjective value. We suggest that physician treatment involves neural representations of treatment expectation, reward processing and empathy, paired with increased activation in attention-related structures. Our findings further the understanding of the neural representations associated with reciprocal interactions between clinicians and patients; a hallmark for successful treatment outcomes.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Relações Médico-Paciente
/
Médicos
/
Recompensa
/
Atenção
/
Efeito Placebo
/
Córtex Pré-Frontal
/
Empatia
/
Giro do Cíngulo
Tipo de estudo:
Clinical_trials
Limite:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Mol Psychiatry
Assunto da revista:
BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR
/
PSIQUIATRIA
Ano de publicação:
2014
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos