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Completed Phase 4 Interventional Results available

The Effects of Expectation and Knowledge on Rizatriptan and Placebo Treatment of Acute Migraine Headache

ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT00719134

Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT00719134. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.

ClinicalTrials.gov public records Last synced Sep 7, 2026, 5:34 AM EDT

Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.

Brief summary

Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.

Evidence-based medicine depends on distinguishing between pharmacological effects and placebo effects in randomized controlled trials (RCT). This proposal seeks to rigorously investigate fundamental questions concerning pharmacological effects, placebo effects and their interactions. Relief of symptoms of acute migraine will be the test condition for this scientific experiment because of migraine's evident clinical significance and the possibility of using participants as their own control during sequential acute migraine attacks. Our overall goal is to elucidate how the pharmacological effects of 100 mg rizatriptan (an FDA-proven effective medication for acute migraine) and the effects of placebo treatment can be modified by varied knowledge and/or expectation ("contextual") conditions. Such knowledge has the possibility to suggest potentially more efficient methodologies to test new medications that can be used to augment and enhance the apparatus of the RCT. General Aim: To elucidate and clarify what is a pharmacological effect and what is a placebo effect, how such effects vary in different knowledge/expectations contexts, and mutually constitute one another and interact. General Hypothesis: The measured pharmacological effect of an effective medication (rizatriptan) and the measured effect of placebo treatment are determined significantly by different knowledge/expectations contexts.

Study identification

NCT ID
NCT00719134
Recruitment status
Completed
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase 4
Enrollment
76 participants

Conditions and interventions

Interventions

Drug

Eligibility (public fields only)

Age range
18 Years to 80 Years
Sex
All
Healthy volunteers
Healthy volunteers not accepted

This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.

Study timeline

Start date
Aug 31, 2008
Primary completion
Nov 30, 2013
Completion
Nov 30, 2013
Last update posted
Apr 8, 2015

2008 – 2013

United States locations

U.S. sites
1
U.S. states
1
U.S. cities
1
Facility City State ZIP Site status
Pain Clinic at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Brookline Massachusetts 02445

Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.

About this trial record page

What this page shows
Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT00719134, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
What this page does not do
No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
Where the data comes from
Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
Last refresh
Last update posted Apr 8, 2015 · Synced Sep 7, 2026

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Open the official record

The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT00719134 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.

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