Dr. Andrew Huberman

Well, placebo effects tend to be more general.

Belief effects tend to be around specific types of information.

But the placebo effect has recently been shown

to extend to a dose-dependent placebo effect.

One of the more remarkable papers I think published in the last few years, most people are unaware of, I talked about this in a Journal Club episode of the Human Lab podcast with the one and only Peter Attia, described a paper where people took either zero, I believe it was,

0.25 milligrams, half a milligram or a gram of nicotine, which is known to be a cognitive enhancer.

Please don't smoke, dip, huff or snuff nicotine.

It's cancerous in those forms.

And taking nicotine can increase blood pressure, vasoconstriction, et cetera.

But nicotine is a cognitive enhancer.

It is a cognitive enhancer.

And I can't help but tell you one story about this before I get back to placebo effect.

Don't worry, I always make my way back.

You can see why living with me as a child was so challenging.

Nicotine, I was told by a very, very famous Nobel laureate member of the neuroscience community because I visited his office.

I won't tell you who it is.

At Columbia University, I met with him.

He was telling me about what he studies, but I noticed he chewed no fewer than six pieces of Nicorette during the course of that conversation.

I had to just stop him at one point and say, why are you consuming all this nicotine?

He said, well, it's what's going to allow me to stave off Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, of course, and I don't want to smoke.