Reddit mentions of Placebo Effects: Understanding the mechanisms in health and disease

From what I understand the placebo effect is incredibly potent. Fabrizio Benedetti, an Italian neurologist, goes so far as to say standard double-blinded drug trials are not accurate because the mere knowledge by a patient that they are being treated results in skewed results: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7747997_Placebos_and_painkillers_Is_mind_as_real_as_matter

Apparently many pharmaceuticals lose potency if they are administered without the patient's direct knowledge of when they're being dosed.

His book is also excellent, but it's quite expensive in English: https://www.amazon.com/Placebo-Effects-Understanding-mechanisms-disease/dp/0198705085/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Fabrizio+Benedetti&qid=1562507750&s=gateway&sr=8-1)

There are similar criticisms of anti-depressants that say that the noticeable side-effects of the drugs are enough to signal to a patient that they are receiving an active drug and thus breaking the blinding.

It's my further understanding that scans such as MRIs for patients with back pain induces the nocebo effect when they are shown an image of deformed disks: https://theconversation.com/no-brain-no-pain-it-is-in-the-mind-so-test-results-can-make-it-worse-40989

This is an excellent anecdotal illustration of how the brain interprets pain signals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwd-wLdIHjs