Daily HealthBeat Tip

Pain and the brain

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

If people who are ill become convinced something will make them feel better, they sometimes feel better � even if it's a fake medication that can't do anything.

This mysterious ability is known as the placebo effect, and researcher Jon-Kar Zubieta at the University of Michigan Medical School looked at it. His study, supported by the National Institutes of Health, was in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Zubieta examined the release of natural pain-relieving chemicals called endorphins. In his study, people had their brains scanned while researchers administered pain � and a fake pain-reliever, the placebo.

"We objectively measured how these anti-pain chemicals are being released deep within the human brain." (five seconds)

Expecting pain reduction raised endorphin activity in areas involved in pain regulation. So Zubieta thinks placebo is not something we make up � it's in our brain chemistry.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: January 10, 2005

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