How You Really Make Decisions

59:00

Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK - causing more deaths in this group than car accidents, and even more than cancer. This means that the most likely thing to kill Dr Xand Van Tulleken is himself. And he wants to know why. Xand finds out what we know about why people develop suicidal thoughts, and whether there is anything that we can do about it.

Horizon • 2018 • Brain

28:36

What is memory? How do our memories change from childhood to adulthood? How we can build up greater brain reserves to power our mind into old age? Brain epigenetics, how the expression of our DNA can be changed by our experiences, is an intriguing new area of science with huge health implications.

6/10 • Catalyst: Season 1 • 2015 • Brain

48:51

We’re always competing, even when we least expect it. The will to win is an instinct that’s kept our species alive. In this programme we discover why coming out on top feels so great and why losing feels so bad.

S1E3 • Human Instinct • Brain

11:07

Professor Shapiro shows us how some images can prompt two, or even three, equally valid interpretations. Rather than settling on one interpretation, our brains tend to switch among all of them – leading to some baffling and astonishing visual experiences.

S1E6 • Illusions • 2017 • Brain

118:15

Chris Packham helps autistic people illustrate how their minds work, helping them connect with their friends and family in a new, more authentic way. Chapter 1: Since sharing his own autism diagnosis with the world, naturalist and presenter Chris Packham has been flooded with letters and emails from other autistic people, frustrated that their friends, families and co-workers don't understand them. And in this series, Chris wants to bridge the gap. By teaming up with top film-makers, graphic designers, animators and musicians, Chris helps a group of autistic people create short films to reveal to their family and friends how they're truly feeling inside – what's really going on in their autistic minds. He helps an autistic comedian reveal to her mum what's really going on inside her head, gives a non-speaking autistic man the chance to take his message to the world and visits the only state school in the country exclusively for autistic girls. Chapter 2: Chris meets Anton, a teaching assistant and trance DJ with a deep love of Middlesbrough FC, and Ethan, a 19-year-old student and aspiring rapper from Essex. He helps them make films to reveal to their friends and classmates how Anton feels about change and Ethan about hypersensitivity to noise. Chris also meets Dr Luke Beardon, an expert in autistic hypersensitivity, and Dr Punit Shah, who helps him to understand both Anton's restrictive and repetitive behaviours and Chris's own need for order in his life.

2023 • Brain

9:07

Artists like M.C. Escher played with our visual perception in their art. In this 4th installment of the series, Prof. Arthur Shapiro returns to the classic visual illusions that show us that what we see is not exactly in plain sight.

S1E4 • Illusions • 2017 • Brain