placebo

研究者らの実験によると, 動物やヒトが喜びを感じる脳の神経を刺激することで, 本来の免疫力を高める効果が期待できるそうです。

Study: Tickling the brain can boost immunity

PARIS (AFP-Jiji) — Artificially stimulating the brain’s feel-good center boosts immunity in mice in a way that could help explain the power of placebos, a study has reported earlier this month.

“Our findings indicate that activation of areas of the brain associated with positive expectations can affect how the body copes with diseases,” said senior author Asya Rolls, an assistant professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Faculty of Medicine.

The findings, reported in Nature Medicine, “might one day lead to the development of new drugs that utilise the brain’s potential to cure,” she said.

It has long been known that the human brain’s reward system, which mediates pleasure, can be activated with a dummy pill devoid of any active ingredients — known as a placebo — if the person taking it thinks it’s real medicine.

“But it was not clear whether this could impact physical well-being,” Rolls told AFP.

Nor did scientists know — if, indeed, an immune response was strengthened — exactly how the signal traveled through the body.

以下省略

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003058660

本日気になった表現は “placebo” です。

『リーダーズ英和中辞典』(研究社)で調べると, 「[医](薬として患者に投与される, 有効成分のない)偽薬, プラシーボ(心理効果用・新薬テストの対照剤用)」とありました。もとはカトリックの用語で「死者のために唱える聖務の晩課」を指すそうです。

Merriam-Webster.comには “medicine: a pill or substance that is given to a patient like a drug but that has no physical effect on the patient” と定義されています。

同様に, 先生から「エナジードリンクは気休めであること」を「プラシーボ」と表現する, と教わったことを思い出しました。(Cayu)