Alle afleveringen
1.047 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Brain hijinks: out-of-body experiences and other tricks of consciousness
28 juni 2008 · 30 min
What happens when your brain sees the world not as it really is? This week, the scientific effort to simulate out-of-body experiences to probe the limits of the self. And, remarkable stories of vision gone heywire—what they reveal about our 'seeing brain'. Two scientists join Natasha Mitchell with extraordinary insights into how your brain creates your mind... Lees meer
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Michael Gazzaniga: Split brains and other heady tales
21 juni 2008 · 30 min
One of the big names of the brain is Michael Gazzaniga, whose career was forged in the lab of Nobel laureate Roger Sperry. His striking experiments continue to uncover the differences between your left and right hemispheres. Today he's on the US President's Bioethics Council, heads up a major project on neuroscience and the law, and is a prolific writer of popular neuroscience. He joins Natasha Mitchell to reflect on the brain's left and right, and the mysterious nature of free will. Lees meer
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Brave New Mind: Smart drugs and the ethics of neuro-enhancement
14 juni 2008 · 30 min
An April Fools prank this year saw the launch of the World Anti-Brain Doping Authority. Jokes aside, drugs like Ritalin for ADHD and Modafinil for sleeping disorders are now being popped by people who want to be weller than well. Some argue that the spectre of 'smart drugs' and 'cosmetic pharmacology' pose a challenge to our authentic selves. Do we know the long term risks? And in the classroom, would brain-doping be cheating? Lees meer
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Courage: Guts, grit, spine, heart, and verve.
7 juni 2008 · 30 min
Polish-born Sabina Wolanski, now 80, was a teenager when her entire family was killed by Nazis, and was the sole Holocaust survivor to speak at the launch of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Russian-born Maria Tumarkin came to Australia as a teenager in 1980s. Her new book unearths courage in the crevices of everyday life, and she's defiantly not interested in heroes. They join Natasha Mitchell in an intimate exchange about brave minds. Lees meer
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When Words and Science Meet - All in the Mind at the Sydney Writers' Festival
31 mei 2008 · 30 min
Stefan Merrill Block's debut novel, The Story of Forgetting, is a clever tale about familial Alzheimer's disease. Spanning time and place, it's the surprising story of a gene, a fantasy land where memory is absent, a hunchback, and one boy's quest to understand the disease stealing his mother's mind. And, Canadian emergency physician Dr Vincent Lam takes us inside the lives of four young doctors in his compelling debut, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. They join Natasha Mitchell in discussion from the 2008 Sydney Writers' Festival. Lees meer
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Museums Week: A magical mystery tour through the scientific psyche
24 mei 2008 · 30 min
A collection of butterfly genitalia gathered by novelist Nabokov; a precious sand dollar from Darwin's epic Beagle voyage; tapeworms from the stomachs of wealthy Bostonians - Harvard's acclaimed Natural History Museum is a vast treasure trove of biological objects and oddities. Reaching back to the 1700s, the collection represents a who's who of great minds of science. Join Natasha Mitchell for a magical mystery tour through the rarest of the rare - and a glimpse into the making of the modern scientific psyche. [Find out more about and contribute to Marvellous Museums week on ABC Radio National here]. Lees meer
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The science of happiness
17 mei 2008 · 30 min
The pursuit of happiness is a global obsession. But can science investigate its slippery, subjective nature? What are the metrics—self report, brain activity, or the good deeds we do? Five world leaders in the field join Natasha Mitchell in conversation—neuroscientist Richard Davidson, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace, psychologist Daniel Gilbert and philosopher David Chalmers. Lees meer
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Quitting the habit: neurobiology, addiction and the insidious ciggie
10 mei 2008 · 30 min
Smokers cling to the ciggies for dear life, knowing it will likely be a much shorter one. An anti-smoking drug released in Australia targets nicotine receptors in the brain, working differently to traditional nicotine replacement therapies. But are we too fixed on a quick fix for addiction? And, the challenge of investigating post-marketing reports that the drug may trigger suicidal thoughts and behaviour in some users. Real side effect of the meds, or part of nicotine withdrawal? Lees meer
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Disembodied brains, culture and science: Indigenous lives under gaze [Part 2 of 2]
3 mei 2008 · 30 min
Maori people believe the body is derived from the earth, and returns to the ancestral earth at death—complete. The flesh, and all its bits, are sacred. The new Human Tissue Bill in New Zealand has provoked debate over who owns your body at death—you or your family? The Maori Party argues the legislation is Western-centric and racist. And, a young Maori scientist working with post-mortem brain tissue is breaking new ground, to keep her lab life 'culturally safe', in consultation with her tribe. Lees meer
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Disembodied brains, culture and science: Indigenous lives under gaze (Part 1 of 2)
26 april 2008 · 30 min
The incredible saga of Ishi, California's last 'wild' Indian, is the stuff of American folklore. It's also the quest for a lost brain, taken from Ishi's tuberculosis ravaged body at death—only to be rediscovered and repatriated 80 years later. And next week—a young Maori scientist working with post-mortem brain tissue is breaking new ground, to keep her lab life 'culturally safe'. Lees meer
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Stone Age brains in 21st century skulls
19 april 2008 · 30 min
Front up to your shrink, and you bring a menagerie of hunter gatherers, anteaters and reptiles from your ancestral past with you. Or so Professor Daniel Wilson and Dr Gary Galambos believe. Both clinical psychiatrists, they provocatively challenge their profession to look to the Darwinian roots of human neuroses, and the evolutionary battleground that is our stone-age brain. Lees meer
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A day in the life of...Meet the Ingersons
12 april 2008 · 30 min
Four-year-old Tara has a very special brain. Like Rain Man, she was born without a Corpus Callosum. It's the head's superhighway -- a thick band of nerve fibres connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. Join Natasha Mitchell as she experiences a day in the life of the Ingerson family, with rare insights into one of the most complicated neurological birth defects. Lees meer
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Poetic Science: Bodies, brains and the art of experimentation
5 april 2008 · 30 min
Meet polymath Ian Gibbins -- neuroscientist, anatomist and university professor by day; poet, performer and composer by night. In a unique audio portrait, All in the Mind takes you inside all of his worlds; contemplating cadavers, nerve cells and the creative arts. Lees meer
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Your inner ape
22 maart 2008 · 30 min
Apes are our closest relatives -- nearly 99% of our genes are identical -- but how do our inner lives compare? Culture, empathy, language, learning -- do chimps have the smarts to pull these off? Channel your 'inner ape' with the world's top primatologists as they unearth surprising results. Lees meer
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The psyche on Death Row
15 maart 2008 · 30 min
Four Australians remain on Death Row in prisons offshore. Guilty or innocent -- what does facing your demise by another's hand do to the psyche? This week, extraordinary first hand accounts from men who spent decades incarcerated on Death Row. And, psychologists investigating the state of the confined mind. Lees meer
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PAIN: The power and the pain (Part 2 of 2)
8 maart 2008 · 30 min
BBC Baghdad correspondent Andrew North was struck down with a debilitating illness after reporting on the US invasion in Iraq, paralysed with acute pain as his immune system attacked his nervous system. After reporting on and witnessing the pain of others, he was forced to confront his own. In this series, Andrew investigates the perplexing experience of pain. In Part 2 - the expression and suppression of pain - what works? All in the Mind's podcast this week features The Nature of Consciousness Debate with Paul Davies, Susan Blackmore and David Chalmers. Lees meer
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PAIN: The power and the pain (Part 1 of 2)
1 maart 2008 · 30 min
BBC Baghdad correspondent Andrew North was struck down with a debilitating illness after reporting on the US invasion in Iraq, paralysed with acute pain as his immune system attacked his nervous system. After witnessing pain in so many others, he was forced to confront his own. Over two programs, Andrew explores the perplexing experience of pain. In Part 1 - how power, or lack of it, shapes an individual's experience. All in the Mind's podcast this week features The Nature of Consciousness Debate with Paul Davies, Susan Blackmore and David Chalmers. Lees meer
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Women offenders: Confronting the confronting
23 februari 2008 · 30 min
Cases of filicide and infanticide confront us to our core -- but what leads women to kill their own children? And, from cognitive therapy to chemical castration -- most treatments for sexual offenders target men. Do women offenders require a different approach? Three female forensic specialists join Natasha Mitchell with a rare glimpse into a world riddled with taboo and revulsion. Lees meer
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Greening the Psyche
16 februari 2008 · 30 min
Intuitively we sense that nature relaxes us -- even small pockets of green in the concrete urban jungle seem to make a difference. But finding good scientific evidence for how and why has been more difficult -- until now. Crime rates, academic performance, aggression and even ADHD. Could a bit of greening make all the difference? And, ecology on the couch -- a self described 'ecotherapist' with novel techniques. Lees meer
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Proust was a neuroscientist
9 februari 2008 · 36 min
Of course Proust wasn't a neuroscientist. Or was he? Science writer Jonah Lehrer argues 19th century artists from Paul Cezanne to Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein to Walt Whitman anticipated some of the great discoveries about the mind and brain in their ground-breaking art and prose -- realisations that science is only rediscovering now. He's calling for a radical rethink of truth, art and science. Art can make science better, he reckons. Lees meer
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The psychological power of forgiveness in South Africa
2 februari 2008 · 30 min
Psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela was on South Africa's historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chairing many of its tortuous public hearings about atrocities committed in the apartheid era. In an unprecedented dialogue she met with one of apartheid's most abhorrent killers, in jail, to explore forgiveness, psychological redemption and the symbolic language of trauma. She joins Natasha Mitchell in a feature interview. Lees meer
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The Neurobiology of Suicide
26 januari 2008 · 30 min
Psychiatrist and neuroscientist, John Mann, has a grisly job. He wants to understand why some deeply depressed souls take their own lives, yet others resist. His team's post-mortem studies suggest a distinct neurobiology of suicide. And, for those left behind, might there be a definite 'biology of sadness' too? Also, a bereft father writes to his dead son, and asks 'why?' Lees meer
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Behind the scenes: animal experimentation ethics committees
19 januari 2008 · 30 min
A rare glimpse from the inside. An Australian neuroscientist and an animal welfarist share their experiences of working together on animal experimental and ethics committees. Personal philosophies are challenged, compromises are made, and change happens through dialogue. Good animal welfare equals good science, they argue. But does good science always underpin animal welfare? And, a vet turned animal welfare researcher, now driving the effort to improve methods of pain reduction for lab animals. Lees meer
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Julie's Story: Diary of a brain tumour
12 januari 2008 · 30 min
Like many young Australians in their early 20s, writer Julie Deakin headed to Europe for her first 'Big Adventure'. But holidaying in Hungary with her sister she found herself diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour and scheduled for immediate surgery, in a land whose language she didn't speak. It was the start of an eight-year saga before her death in 1998, confronting a tumour that wouldn't go away, and the finality of a passionate young life. This week, Julie's story. Lees meer
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PANIC! A cultural history
29 december 2007 · 30 min
From the collective paranoia of Cold War hysteria to the medicated, disordered mind - sociologist and performance artist Jackie Orr has penned a passionate and political history of panic. She delved into the rich archives of the war-time psyche, confronted her own panic attacks, and even enrolled in the clinical trial of a drug for panic disorder, in her quest to excavate our panicky past and present. Lees meer
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Deep listening: working with Indigenous mental distress
22 december 2007 · 30 min
'How do I get them to talk?' Hinted-at events, listening to the silence, roundabout stories. Mental health and other professionals inexperienced at working with Indigenous clients struggle with the limits of their cultural awareness, with language barriers and with the historical legacies of mistrust and misunderstanding. Cultural competency is more than sharing a joke. So what is it? And how can psychologists, doctors and others acquire it? Lees meer
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Human Rights and psychiatry (Part 2 of 2): Who speaks for the chained and incarcerated?
15 december 2007 · 30 min
Chained in a concrete cell, involuntarily medicated, and isolated. Leading psychiatrist Vikram Patel has amassed a series of shocking photos from asylum settings around the globe -- some taken by 'inmates'. He's challenging his own profession to take action. And, the new Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Will it make a difference? In a historic process, self-identified 'psychiatric survivors' have been closely involved in its development. Lees meer
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Human Rights and psychiatry (Part 1 of 2): Should doctors be involved in interrogation or torture?
8 december 2007 · 30 min
They know the machinations of the mind better than many. So do mental health professionals have a legitimate role in the interrogation of prisoners of war or detainees, in the interests of national security? The American Psychiatric Association and Australia's equivalent have said 'no way'. The peak body for US psychologists have taken a different position. Torture, tough interrogation or treatment - where do the boundaries blur for healers who have taken the Hippocratic Oath? Lees meer
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Brain surgery on the wireless! One year on [Part 2 of 2]
1 december 2007 · 30 min
Brain Surgery - Live on the Wireless!
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Brain surgery on the Wireless! (Part 1 of 2)
24 november 2007 · 30 min
Don your gown and mask, and prepare yourself. Natasha Mitchell takes you into the operating theatre of leading neurosurgeon Professor Jeffrey Rosenfeld at the Alfred Hospital, and inside the head of Kia, his patient, as she has an arteriovenous malformation extracted from her frontal lobes. A repeat chance to catch this rare audiophonic insight into a craft of impressive dexterity, patience and courage. And, on next week's show, 11 months after the surgery, we meet Kia again for an update on life post-op. Surviving major brain surgery has been the easy bit. Lees meer
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The political brain
17 november 2007 · 30 min
As Australians stand in front of the cardboard voting booth next week what's going on in our minds? In choosing the future direction of the nation -- do we weigh up policies and promises with a rational mind, or are we emoting with our pencils? And new research has sent the left and right of the scientific community on a political bender with the idea that we're neurologically wired to support our team. All in the Mind probes your political brain. Lees meer
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Dr Mindfulness: science and the meditation boom
10 november 2007 · 30 min
Quieten your mind. Attend to the moment. Mindfulness-based meditation is being touted as beneficial for any number of afflictions: from anxiety to asthma; social phobia to psoriasis. But what is it, and how can science scrutinise subjective states of mind? Three scientists at high powered institutions discuss how they've turned a personal passion into a professional investigation. Lees meer
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Mind meets matter: stress, schizophrenia, immunity and heart disease
3 november 2007 · 30 min
Are we really more vulnerable to colds when we're stressed? Does depression increase your risk of heart disease? Could a bad bout of the flu during pregnancy cause schizophrenia in your child? Science has long struggled with the question of whether states of mind influence the body, and vice versa. But the historic mind-body divide is being challenged as cardiologists, immunologists and neuroscientists meet across the lab bench. Lees meer
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The Stuff of Thought with Steven Pinker
27 oktober 2007 · 34 min
Why do we often avoid speaking our mind? Does swearing have an evolutionary function? What do linguistic taboos do to your brain? How are new words born? Acclaimed author of The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker is a self-confessed verbivore. To him language offers a window into the human mind and how it works. He joins Natasha Mitchell in a feature interview to argue there's nothing mere about semantics. Lees meer
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Art in the Asylum: orphans of the art world? Part 2 of 2 (The Prinzhorn Collection)
20 oktober 2007 · 30 min
Germany's extraordinary Prinzhorn collection of art was drawn from 19th and 20th century asylums. Psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn was on a quest to find a 'more authentic' art, made by minds liberated from the constraints of rationality. Avant-garde artists turned to the works for inspiration, but the collection went on to be exploited by the Nazis in their horrifying campaign against 'degenerate' art, and those with mental illness. Prinzhorn curator Thomas Roeske joins Natasha Mitchell to discuss the difficult history of art, ethics and asylum. Lees meer
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Art in the Asylum: orphans of the art world? Part 1 of 2 (The Cunningham Dax Collection)
13 oktober 2007 · 30 min
Germany and Australia are home to two of the largest collections of art by psychiatric patients gathered from old asylums - the Prinzhorn and Cunningham Dax collections. The Nazis exploited the European works in their horrifying campaign against 'degenerate' art. But what are the ethics of displaying the art now? Are they clinical records, or orphaned creations? Some see them as diagnostic tools, others as deeply private expressions of tormented, incarcerated minds. Lees meer
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Burma: 'I resist in my mind only'
6 oktober 2007 · 30 min
Medical anthropologist Monique Skidmore has conducted field work in Burma for over a decade, carefully probing the ways the state manipulates the emotional life of the Burmese, and the psychological strategies they adopt to survive under a military regime. Fear threads through every conversation and gesture. Also, updates from a health worker in the longstanding refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border. The mental health challenges are immense. Lees meer
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Therapy Goes Digital: Is the Internet good for your head?
29 september 2007 · 30 min
The Internet is celebrated and castigated in equal measure -- but is it good for your mental health? Are you compelled to check your email morning, night and day? Some believe Internet Addiction Disorder is a very real and growing concern. Others aren't at all convinced it exists. Also, the rise of psychological therapies online -- from depression to social phobia or bulimia -- can a computer really replace your therapist? Lees meer
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The psychological power of forgiveness in South Africa
22 september 2007 · 30 min
Psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela was on South Africa's historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chairing many of its tortuous public hearings about atrocities committed in the apartheid era. In an unprecedented dialogue she met with one of apartheid's most abhorrent killers, in jail, to explore forgiveness, psychological redemption and the symbolic language of trauma. She joins Natasha Mitchell in a feature interview. Lees meer
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Carer Couples: when a partner has a mental illness
15 september 2007 · 30 min
Lover or carer? Partner or dependant? This week, when a partner is afflicted with a severe mental illness, how is the relationship redefined? Do they feel like the body and soul you first fell in love with? Two couples -- Lana and Paul, Gerard and Brendon -- share the trials and triumphs of confronting illness and prejudice together. Lees meer
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Inside Intuition
8 september 2007 · 30 min
Gut feelings, hunches - some people swear by them to make the really big decisions in life. But is there really anything to the idea of trusting a deep, inner sense? Or is intuition little more than superstition? From jam tasting to speed dating - a sceptical neuroscientist delves. Please note: the podcast for this week is a highlight from our archives, not this show which is a feature produced by BBC Radio 4 that cannot be podcast for copyright reasons. The transcript and mp3 audio download for the replacement podcast program are available here. Lees meer
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The Nature of Fear debate: 2007 Australian Science Festival
1 september 2007 · 30 min
From terrorist threats to bushfire anxiety, the rise of panic disorders to political game play - are we living in an era of fear? A world leader in psychopath research; a personality psychologist, top political scientists; and author of The Chemical Weapons Taboo join Natasha Mitchell to take on a hot topic of the times. The good, the bad and the ugly of that visceral human emotion - Fear. Lees meer
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Mind games: coma calamities and delusional deliberations
25 augustus 2007 · 30 min
Where does the Self go when it is battered and bruised beyond recognition? Traumatized after head injury; altered through autism; deconstructed by delusion? TV columnist Ruth Ritchie and neuropsychologist Dr Paul Broks join Natasha Mitchell to navigate the wilderness from very different perspectives, and opposite sides of the doctor's table. Lees meer
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Addiction: Dis-ease over diseased brains
18 augustus 2007 · 30 min
Your brain hijacked -- possessed by a chronic, relapsing brain disease. Scientists now view addiction as a disease, not a behavioural problem. Brain circuits involved in reward and pleasure, planning and control are dramatically changed. The priority is medical treatment, not shame and blame. But others challenge what they dub the 'disease rhetoric', arguing it's fatalistic and reductionist. Do we treat the brain, or the person? And, should we surrender control to the addicted brain? Lees meer
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81 Words: the inside story of psychiatry and homosexuality (Part 2 of 2)
11 augustus 2007 · 30 min
Being gay was considered a mental disorder by psychiatry - until 1973 - when the battle lines were drawn. In this final episode, reporter Alix Spiegel continues the gripping story that spurred a radical rethink. It's the story of a closeted cartel of powerful, gay psychiatrists; of confrontations with angry activists; a shrink dressed in a Nixon mask, and a pivotal encounter in a Hawaiian bar. From Chicago Public Radio's This American Life. Lees meer
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81 Words: the inside story of psychiatry and homosexuality [Part 1 of 2]
4 augustus 2007 · 30 min
Homosexuality was once labelled a mental disease by psychiatry. But in 1973 the challenge came from within. The American Psychiatric Association had a change of heart. And with the tweak of the 81-word definition of sexual deviance in its own diagnostic manual, lives were reclaimed, and values confronted. Reporter and narrator Alix Spiegel tells the gripping story from the inside, revealing the activities of a closeted group of gay psychiatrists who sowed the seeds of change, amongst them her own grandfather, president-elect of the APA at the time. From Chicago Public Radio's This American Life. Lees meer
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When Good People Turn Bad - Philip Zimbardo in conversation
28 juli 2007 · 30 min
In 1971, 23 American college students' lives were changed by the now notorious Stanford Prison Experiment. For the eminent psychologist responsible, Philip Zimbardo, the parallels to the atrocities at Abu Ghraib are palpable. In an exclusive Australian interview, he joins Natasha Mitchell, to reflect on the capacity in all of us to commit evil. It's a case of good apples put in bad barrels. Lees meer
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Behind the scenes: animal experimentation ethics committees
21 juli 2007 · 30 min
A rare glimpse from the inside. An Australian neuroscientist and an animal welfarist share their experiences of working together on animal experimental and ethics committees. Personal philosophies are challenged, compromises are made, and change happens through dialogue. Good animal welfare equals good science, they argue. But does good science always underpin animal welfare? And, a vet turned animal welfare researcher, now driving the effort to improve methods of pain reduction for lab animals. Lees meer
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Nature? Nurture? What makes us human?
14 juli 2007 · 30 min
That old chestnut - what defines human nature? Genes or experience? Are we free agents or genetically determined souls? These questions have fuelled a fierce fight - polarizing a battleground of social scientists, biologists, parents and politicians. World renowned science writer Matt Ridley is calling a truce, and arguing the case for Nature via Nurture. Genes aren't Gods, he argues, they're cogs. As agents of nurture, genes get switched on and off by our experiences. Join Natasha Mitchell with Matt and special guests to debate the implications. Part of the 2007 Alfred Deakin Innovation Lecture series. Lees meer
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Deep listening: working with Indigenous mental distress
7 juli 2007 · 30 min
'How do I get them to talk?' Hinted-at events, listening to the silence, roundabout stories. Mental health and other professionals inexperienced at working with Indigenous clients struggle with the limits of their cultural awareness, with language barriers and with the historical legacies of mistrust and misunderstanding. Cultural competency is more than sharing a joke. So what is it? And how can psychologists, doctors and others acquire it? Lees meer