Treating Parkinson’s Disease: Brain Surgery and the Placebo Effect | National Geographic

Figure. [Music] All right, moment of truth. Goal, we're going to drill a hole in your skull now. The drill is very loud. It's loud to us, but to you, it can be super loud. It will mount her so good. [Music]

All right, yeah, you remember an elite club. Very few people can say they've had a hole drilled in their skull. Over our way, we're going to open up that covering of your branch if there's anything inside.

Okay, Roberta. When you start to offer patients very powerful treatments that you're going to introduce, expectation of benefit, when you introduce expectation of benefit, then comes the placebo effect.

All right, so we're just going to take a listen to your brain. Okay? When patients expect to get better, they oftentimes get it out of either three green lights there and one there. Can you put that down?

I'm not trying to use a placebo to trick a patient into getting better, not completely. Already, I want to do quite a bit, but I want to do anything I can to improve this patient's quality of life. So if placebo enters into that in a positive way, I embrace the better.

Can you snap your fingers for me first? I'm worried. Let me know if you feel anything. Okay? It's not a magical thing. The ruther is not magic. Almost he's got to show you back up. It's another part of the brain that is producing a beneficial effect that is not directly related to our treatment.

Take another one. [Music] [Music]