The Super-Charged Brain • 2020 • episode "S1E3" • The Curious Mind

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

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

31:05

If I could live forever, should I? How does being reminded of our own mortality affect us psychologically? In this episode I speak with mortician and death positivity activist Caitlin Doughty and visit a cryonics facility trying to extend human life indefinitely. Will I take them up on their offer, or will I choose to die?

S3E5 • Mind Field • 2018 • Brain

34:37

Would you reroute a train to run over one person to prevent it from running over five others? In the classic “Trolley Problem” survey, most people say they would. But I wanted to test what people would actually do in a real-life situation. In the world’s first realistic simulation of this controversial moral dilemma, unsuspecting subjects will be forced to make what they believe is a life-or-death decision.

S2E1 • Mind Field • 2017 • Brain

53:47

Hallucinogenic drugs—popularly called psychedelics—have been used by human societies for thousands of years. Today, scientists are taking a second look at many of these mind-altering substances—both natural and synthetic—and discovering that they can have profoundly positive clinical impacts, helping patients struggling with a range of afflictions from addiction to depression and PTSD.

NOVA PBS • 2022 • Brain

22:22

In this episode I visit a researcher who is studying memory by using machine learning and neuroimaging to detect and predict people's brain states. I also travel to Japan to meet with a team working on ways to record the content of peoples’ dreams.

S3E8 • Mind Field • 2019 • Brain