The Placebo Effect  Monday 7 March 2005 12:00AM (view full
episode)  This week a special feature on the placebo effect,
focusing on one of the most controversial treatments around -
medication for depression. Professor Helen Mayberg from Emory
University in Atlanta, Georgia, has done research in this area.
She did brain scans of people taking an active drug versus a
placebo to see the placebo effect in action.  And Professor
Arthur Barsky from Harvard Medical School talks about nocebos. A
nocebo is the flipside of the placebo and can actually bring
harm.   Norman Swan: Welcome to the Health Report.  Today a
special on the placebo effect focusing on one of the most
controversial treatments: medication for depression.  Hello, I'm
Norman Swan.  The placebo effect is where a dummy preparation,
which the person believes to be the active treatment, achieves
the same or similar effects. An aura has grown up around the
placebo as to whether it's some kind of special brain function
on its own, which if it could be ide