Obesity
Conditions
Keywords
placebo effect, fatigue, motivation, physical abilities
Brief summary
Fatigue is a central symptom of obesity: it significantly impacts daily functioning, psychological well-being, compliance with physical therapy, and quality of life. However, the full understanding of the origin and treatment of fatigue in obesity is still a matter of debate, requiring further research, especially from new perspectives. From a neuroscientific perspective, fatigue is more than the subjective perception of tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness. It results in the complex interaction between (bottom-up) sensory input coming from the periphery, and motivational and psychological input, which is related to top-down cognition. In this framework, placebos may affect the output of the top-down cognitive processing by altering the individual evaluation of the ongoing peripheral performance. Indeed, evidence from both healthy conditions and clinical contexts suggests that fatigue can be modulated. The after-effect of such a modulation can be observed not only at a behavioural level, in terms of physical endurance, but also a psychological (i.e., decreased of perceived fatigue) and neurophysiological (changes in brain activity, especially in the fatigue-related components as the RP) levels.
Interventions
OTHERPlacebo-Natural History
Half of the participants will receive a placebo (i.e., motivational/verbal) cue before and after an experimental session in which they will perform several lifts. Half of the participants will receive no placebo before and after an experimental session in which they will perform several lifts.
Sponsors
University of Turin, Italy
Istituto Auxologico Italiano
Study design
Observational model
CASE_CONTROL
Time perspective
CROSS_SECTIONAL
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
20 Years to 50 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
• Right-handed diagnosis of obesity (the level of body mass index - BMI - higher or equal to 30).
Exclusion criteria
• concurrent neurological, neurodevelopmental (e.g., autism), motor, somatosensory and/or psychiatric disorders
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Behavioural outcome of fatigue | baseline | The number of flexions (from a minimum of 0 to maximum of180) performed before and after the treatment for each individual. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| The individual level of perceived fatigue | baseline | On a Likert scale (from 0 to 7), participants verbally report the individual level of perceived fatigue in doing the flexions before and after the treatment. |
Countries
Italy
Outcome results
None listed