This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg

Magicians and illusionists rely on our brains' tendency to predict what comes next—and the surprise we feel when we're wrong. Dr. Luis Martinez, a neuroscientist at the Spanish National Research Council at the Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, Spain, explains how card tricks, illusions, and other sleight of hand is all about the brain's interpretation of reality. Hint: your reality is different from the magician's.

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691208442/the-illusionist-brain 

The human brain did not evolve to read -- but reading makes us more fully human as it opens up new worlds of understanding and empathy. Today, as we read so much by "skimming" on phones and tablets, we're missing out on the sophisticated thought processes that deep reading provides. Dr. Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA and the author of several books on literacy, joins us this week to discuss how reading in a digital era affects our critical thinking and leaves us vulnerable to misinformation.   Plus... is dyslexia actually a superpower?

https://www.maryannewolf.com/

New parents - especially moms - experience profound changes in the brain when they are expecting and welcoming a new baby. Health journalist Chelsea Conaboy explains how the caricature of "mommy brain" and its cognitive fog has it all wrong - parenthood actually has a neuroprotective effect, as the brain adapts to meeting the needs of children. It happens to all parents, not just mothers, but it's most dramatic in gestating parents. Plus... how it takes a troop to raise a monkey.

https://www.chelseaconaboy.com/ 

Teen brains are uniquely primed for addiction -- that age is all about novelty seeking, risk taking, and impulsivity, a developmental stage with strong drives and little inhibition -- and they "learn" the pleasures of alcohol and drugs a little too well. Judith Grisel, PhD, a behavioral neuroscientist at Bucknell University who has written widely (and from personal experience) about the brain chemistry of addiction, explains why the urge to feel good "on demand" is so difficult to resist, and how the brain adapts to highs and lows. Fortunately, she also explains the path to life after addiction. Plus... why smelling weed on every street corner these days makes recovery much harder.

 https://www.bucknell.edu/fac-staff/judy-grisel

You know what you have to do to tighten your abs (whether or not you actually do it), but do you know how to awaken your brain?  Lisa Miller, professor of psychology at Columbia University, explains how we humans are hard-wired for spirituality, but we've lost the connection. Faith-based traditions once connected most of us to something larger than ourselves, and without that we've entered a self-centered age of widespread depression, addiction, and suicide. Dr. Miller has insight into how to awaken our brains and reconnect to the deeper force in life, even if you don't believe in a god.

For episode transcripts and more information: www.thisisyourbrain.com 

Dr. Miller's book "The Awakened Brain": https://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/608347/ 

Have you ever felt a "presence" - someone next to you, even speaking to you, when no one is there? Dr. Ben Alderson-Day, a psychologist at Durham University in the UK, studies the phenomena of felt presences, or what he calls "the unseen other."

These experiences are not always symptoms of mental illness - these are universally reported and not always distressing. Learn what's happening in the brain during these hallucinations - or should we call them visitations? Plus... how the Internet brings together groups of people who can conjure up invisible friends, seemingly on command.

Full transcripts and additional resources available at: www.thisisyourbrain.com 

For more about Dr. Alderson-Day's book, "Presence; The Strange Science and True Stories of the Unseen Other"

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250278265/presence 

Temple Grandin, PhD, wants kids -- especially those on the autism spectrum -- to start using their hands again. The woman Oliver Sacks called "the anthropologist on Mars" explains how our brains may be naturally wired to think in words, mathematics, or visuals, and there's nothing disordered about any of them. Dr. Grandin urges us to respect our young visual thinkers and celebrate their strengths instead of labelling them disabilities.

https://www.templegrandin.com/ 

Some 6 million Americans suffer from active PTSD at any given moment, and nearly half of us will be exposed to major trauma at some point in our lives. Dr. Shaili Jain, a Stanford University psychiatrist and PTSD specialist, explains why silence plays such a large role in the aftermath of trauma, why some people recover quickly and others don't, and why men experience more trauma but women are more likely to develop PTSD.  Plus... mitigating trauma with the help of “man’s best friend.”

www.shailijainmd.com  

Superstitions, fairy tales, and talismans are more than silly remnants of our early human history -- they are bridges to the unconscious mind. Psychiatrist Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, talks about just how complicated the unconscious is, and how rituals and fairy tales actually make us more sophisticated managers of our conscious mind.

https://www.danielzlieberman.com/

With the left hemisphere of her brain ravaged by a hemorrhage, neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor made a surprising discovery. The brain bleed had not only deprived her of language, it had also wiped away memory of past trauma. What Dr. Taylor learned about brain cells after a stroke has implications for identity, spirituality, and insight.  Find out why you’re a better lie detector without your left hemisphere, and why shouting at a stroke survivor is not the best strategy.   Plus - the "Singing Brain Banker".

https://www.drjilltaylor.com/

We all work on important tasks while we sleep – consolidating memories, building immunity, and managing weight, just for starters – but some of us do a whole lot more. From walking and talking to driving and committing crimes, sleep disorders can be disruptive, dangerous, and downright deadly.

British neurologist and sleep expert Guy Leschziner explains how different parts of the brain can be in different stages of sleep at the same time, how the most common sleep disorder is actually several different problems, and why poor sleep may cause hallucinations and out-of-body experiences.

Plus - how some animals can sleep with one eye open!

https://www.guyleschziner.com/

Where in the brain is that little something that makes top performers feel so confident in their ability? Can that confidence be developed in someone who is naturally more timid? Dr. Nate Zinsser, director of West Point’s Performance Psychology Program and author of The Confident Mind, explains how a sense of mastery develops, and why butterflies in your stomach are a signal from the brain when you're about to do something great. Plus... why Ted Lasso wants us all to be a little more like goldfish.

Did you ever notice when you see a close up of Julia Roberts smiling on the big screen, you have an urge to smile back?  That’s an effect of your brain’s “Mirror Rule” according to Dr. Jeff Zacks of Washington University.  Watching movies in a theater stimulates the signals in our brains more than almost any other activity.  Dr. Zacks investigates the various ways your brain is being manipulated while you are watching movies – including how propaganda movies embed into your memory more powerfully than books or any other medium. 

Plus – how “the talkies” changed us!

Placental stem cells have the potential to stop cancer and autoimmune disorders in their tracks, slow or even halt the aging process, and perhaps even tackle the next pandemic. Dr. Robert Hariri, a surgeon and stem cell entrepreneur, explains how a temporary product of pregnancy, often discarded as waste, is actually an example of evolution at its best, a veritable "nature's supermarket" for cells with amazing regenerative properties.

Plus - learn how some cells are more "potent" than others. 

The past 30 years have produced an epidemic of obesity -- mostly because evolution did not prepare us for so many calories and so little physical activity.

Dr. Louis Aronne, a leading authority on obesity, explains how a period of caloric excess can damage the neural connections that manage your metabolism, throwing your weight regulation out of whack. More importantly, he talks about the new drug that tackles obesity at two different hormonal sites and promises to become an actual "weight loss pill."

Plus... the real reason to skip the bread basket (it's in your brain)

All of life is set to music -- or at least to a rhythm. From the graceful undulation of a jellyfish to the irresistible urge to bop along to our favorite songs, the urge to sway is hard-wired. Dr. Laurel Trainor, a professor of psychology, neuroscience, and behavior at McMaster University and director of the "LIVELab" there, conducts research into auditory development. She has found that our unconscious movements connect us in surprising ways, whether it's band members playing in concert, a mother singing to her infant, or couples on a speed date. As it turns out, it can even make us better, more altruistic people.

Plus, what's it like to be inside a performers head? 

https://livelab.mcmaster.ca/

Many of us worry about memory loss, but it's surprisingly important to forget. Scott Small, MD, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Columbia, says pruning our memories is good for us. We all know "forgive and forget" is key to emotional health, but forgetting is also critical to cognitive health. Find out why a healthy dose of forgetting is not a pathology, but a way of clearing away extraneous information and improving our more important memories. Plus... why their memories keep chimps in a state of rage and fear, while forgetting makes bonobos so happy. 

https://www.neurology.columbia.edu/profile/scott-small-md

The hemispheres of the brain are responsible for different views of the world - one literal, narrow-beam, and maybe a little angry, and the other broad-minded, nuanced, and appreciative of beauty. Psychiatrist, philosopher, and literary scholar Iain McGilchrist has spent his career studying how the two hemispheres of the brain work, together and separately, to forge our understanding of our world. https://channelmcgilchrist.com/

Plus...the curious case of Mr. Phineas Gage.

Extreme athlete Wim Hof has set records for immersion in icy water, and he recommends it for physical and mental health. Find out why his wife's suicide drove Hof to master controlled hyperventilation -- in breathtaking cold -- to become happy, strong, and healthy. (Everything else, he'll tell you, is BS.) Surprisingly, heart and brain science just may support the Wim Hof Method.

  http://www.wimhofmethod.com/

Plus...contrasting ice and fire, with a firewalking story courtesy of Jim Metzner www.pulseplanet.com  

Dancer and neuroscientist Julia Basso, PhD, wants us all to dance -- together or separately, it's all good. Dancing with a partner creates a synchrony that's remarkably like that between a mother and infant, and even dancing alone benefits body and brain alike. Find out how dance produces new neurons and engages brain processes, and why it is that joyful movement optimizes brain function. Plus... Dance for Parkinson's Disease!

https://www.juliabasso.com/home

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