Learned immunosuppressive placebo responses in renal transplant patients.

ABSTRACT: Patients after organ transplantation or with chronic, inflammatory autoimmune diseases require lifelong treatment with immunosuppressive drugs, which have toxic adverse effects. Recent insight into the neurobiology of placebo responses shows that associative conditioning procedures can be employed as placebo-induced dose reduction strategies in an immunopharmacological regimen. However, it is unclear whether learned immune responses can be produced in patient populations already receiving an immunosuppressive regimen. Thus, 30 renal transplant patients underwent a taste-immune conditioning paradigm, in which immunosuppressive drugs (unconditioned stimulus) were paired with a gustatory stimulus [conditioned stimulus (CS)] during the learning phase. During evocation phase, after patients wer

SUBMITTER: Kirchhof J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5910853 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature