Basic Instincts • 2017 • episode "S1E2" • Meet the Humans

59:15

The Psychedelic Drug Trial has exclusive access to a ground-breaking new trial at Imperial College London. The trial sees, for the first time ever under controlled conditions, a psychedelic drug tested head-to-head against a standard antidepressant as a treatment for depression. The film follows a pioneering team of scientists and psychotherapists, led by Professor David Nutt, Dr Robin Carhart-Harris and Dr Rosalind Watts, as they compare the effects of psilocybin (the active ingredient of magic mushrooms) with an antidepressant (an SSRI called escitalopram) on a small group of participants with clinical depression. This is scientific research at its most cutting edge. With over seven million people being prescribed antidepressants each year in England alone, this drug trial is an important milestone in understanding a completely different treatment for depression.

2021 • Brain

220:54

(4 episodes merged) Jacob Ward sets out to discover we are not who we think we are. We imagine our conscious minds make most decisions, but in reality we go through much of our lives on "autopilot". Marketers and social media companies rely on it. Hacking Your Mind offers you an autopilot owner's manual.

2020 • Brain

10:51

In part 3, Prof. Shapiro shows us that the brain is challenged to process some stimuli from the eyes and sometimes "guesses" what you are seeing. Join him as he takes us through visual perception challenges like the "Curveball Illusion". Has he thrown you for a loop yet?

S1E3 • Illusions • 2017 • Brain

59:11

Dallas Campbell delves into the Horizon archive to discover how our understanding of intelligence has transformed over the last century. From early caveman thinkers to computers doing the thinking for us, he discovers the best ways of testing how clever we are - and enhancing it.

2011 • Brain

59:04

At the age of 23, David Harewood had a psychotic breakdown and was sectioned. Two years ago he opened up on Twitter about the experience - and now he wants to tell the full story. Travelling back to his home town of Birmingham, the actor lets viewers into the realities of experiencing a psychotic breakdown, and how much he blocked out at the time, meeting up with his mother and old friends who were with him at the time. But this isn't just his story. He also spends time with other young people living with psychosis and the NHS professionals who treat them.

2023 • Brain

87:54

One in five Americans are diagnosed with mental illness every year. Suicide is the second most common cause of death in the US for youth aged 15-24, and kills over 48,300 in the US and 800,000 people globally per year. Drug overdose kills 81,000 in the US annually. The auto-immune disorder epidemic affects 24 million people in the US alone. What is going on? The interconnected epidemics of anxiety, chronic illness and substance abuse are, according to Dr Gabor Mat?, normal - but not in the way you might think.

2021 • Brain