Stimulating the brain can boost immunity, finds study that shed light on placebo effect

Artificially stimulating the brain’s feel-good centre boosts immunity in mice in a way that could help explain the power of placebos, a study reported Monday.

“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 said.

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