Post Description

Britain's leading female neuroscientist gives a personal view of what it is about their brains that makes humans think, act and feel the way they do, in a new series. Professor Susan Greenfield, Director of the Royal Institution and Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University, explores the grand themes emerging from the latest brain research. 'Why do we think the way we do, what makes us who we are? Our hopes, our fears, our thoughts, our dreams are all somehow hidden away inside our heads.' Susan explains why she believes all aspects of human experience will eventually be explained in terms of the physical processes of the brain. 'I'm convinced there isn't a single aspect of our lives that doesn't reside in the sludgy mass of our brain cells.'


All In The Mind

The story of how science has begun to understand the astonishing complexity of the brain is revealed ' from the earliest crude studies of the effects of brain injury, through to the latest insights from direct stimulation of specific areas in patients undergoing brain surgery whilst wide awake. Professor Greenfield meets Sarah Kitchen while the latter is undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumour, performed by neurosurgeon Henry Marsh. Because of the site of the tumour, there is a danger that the surgery could result in damage to the area of Sarah's brain that appears to be responsible for her speech. So she is kept awake for this part of the operation and asked to keep talking.

But what about more complicated processes than even speech? Susan asks if it is possible that artistic and even spiritual feelings are merely the result of electrical activity in the temporal lobe area of the brain.

Susan meets a woman whose particular form of epilepsy causes her to see colours very vividly and to experience intensely religious hallucinations ' two distinct characteristics of painter Vincent Van Gogh, another sufferer of temporal lobe epilepsy. 

~49 minuten, Engels gesproken, geen ondertiteling.