Conditioning, the Placebo Effect, and Psoriasis

Summary

This study uses the psychological principle known as classical conditioning to try to improve the standard treatment of psoriasis. Classical conditioning is a process of behavioral modification in which a person learns to connect a certain response-in this case, improvement of psoriasis-with a new action, or stimulus-in this case, application of an inactive cream. The goal of this study is to show that people with psoriasis who are maintained on corticosteroid cream part of the time and an inactive (placebo) cream at other times show a lower incidence of relapse and a reduced severity of psoriasis that patients treated with that same (reduced) amount of medication administered all the time.

Timeline

Start

2000-08

Primary completion

2006-07

Completion

2006-07

Publications

• Background Ader R, Cohen N. Behaviorally conditioned immunosuppression. Psychosom Med. 1975 Jul-Aug;37(4):333-40. doi: 10.1097/00006842-197507000-00007.
• Background Ader R, Cohen N, Felten D. Psychoneuroimmunology: interactions between the nervous system and the immune system. Lancet. 1995 Jan 14;345(8942):99-103. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(95)90066-7. No abstract available.
• Background Giang DW, Goodman AD, Schiffer RB, Mattson DH, Petrie M, Cohen N, Ader R. Conditioning of cyclophosphamide-induced leukopenia in humans. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. 1996 Spring;8(2):194-201. doi: 10.1176/jnp.8.2.194.
• Background Ader R. "The role of conditioning in pharmacotherapy." In The placebo effect: An interdisciplinary exploration, edited by A. Harrington, 138-165. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Drugs

Indications