Placebos are the sugar pills or other fake treatments that some patients get during clinical trials, and some of those patients show improvement even when they are not getting a drug or other real procedure, which is known as "the placebo effect." Well now, there is a "nocebo effect." If patients are told a treatment will be painful or distressing, or even if they just fear it will, they can have bothersome side effects even when they are getting a placebo. Some patients who were not receiving real drugs nevertheless say they suffered vomiting, burning sensations and colds, according to a new paper in the journal Pain. The power of suggestion, in other words, can work both ways.

A lot of you may be able to relate well to this item because of the Steelers' roller-coaster experience this season. A new study at Ohio State University found that fans who were the most worried about their team losing were the ones who enjoyed the subsequent victory the most. And they used a classic situation to do the study: the 2006 match between arch-rivals Ohio State and Michigan, when Ohio State was ranked No. 1 and Michigan No. 2 in the nation. Ohio State won in a dramatic finish, and communications professor Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick found, based on surveys of students from both schools who watched the contest, that "you need the negative emotions of thinking your team might lose to get you in an excited, nervous state. If your team wins, all that negative tension is suddenly converted into positive energy, which will put you in a euphoric state."

Scientists in India have used brain cell transplants to completely cure rats whose brains were deliberately damaged. Researchers at India's National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Sciences injected a chemical into the brains of 48 adult rats that destroyed a structure called the subiculum, which links the memory-forming hippocampus with the brain's thinking cortex. Rats that were not treated lost the ability to find their way through a maze and learn from the experience. But rats given a transplant of fetal rat brain cells recovered completely. The scientists tagged the cells with fluorescent molecules, and were able to see that the transplanted cells migrated to one part of the hippocampus, where they apparently secreted brain growth factors.

Social psychologists Hartmut Blank and Amy Hendren at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom set up an experiment in which 240 people were approached on the street and asked if they could spare 10 pence for a parking meter. In some cases, the borrower wore a neutral T-shirt. In other cases, the borrower wore a T-shirt espousing pro-gay sentiments. And in those cases, the psychologists said, people were much less likely to lend money for parking. The prejudice was particularly noticeable among men, they said.

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.