This week, we're presenting stories about what happens when our own brains keep us from being fully ourselves.
Part 1: When storyteller Sandi Marx begins to develop cognitive symptoms of lupus, she worries she'll lose the aspects of her personality that she values most.
Part 2: Chemist Toria Stafford's untreated mental illness starts to overwhelm both her s ... Show More
Aug 22
Becoming Your Hero: Stories about embodying a role model
In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers transform into someone they admire—one quite literally, the other more figuratively.Part 1: While juggling climate science studies and a budding comedy career, Rollie Williams finds an unexpected niche impersonating his environment ... Show More
25m 47s
Aug 8
Sticky Fingers: Stories about theft
In this week’s episode, we explore what pushes someone to steal, and how it feels to be the one robbed.Part 1: With a potential cancer diagnosis looming and his health insurance about to vanish, David Crabb finds an envelope stuffed with $100 bills. Part 2: When Zakiya Whatley bo ... Show More
31m 36s
Sep 2023
The New Science Behind Tackling Depression
Philip Gold is one of the world's leading researchers of depressive illness. Since 1974, he has worked at the National Institute of Health, where he has served as Chief of Neuroendocrine Research, and Senior Investigator in the National Institute of Mental Health Intramural Resea ... Show More
32m 15s
May 2021
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor | Whole Brain Living
In 2008, Jill Bolte Taylor gave the first-ever TED Talk to go massively viral. A Harvard-trained neuroscientist, she told the story of her stroke that largely wiped out the entire left hemisphere of her brain, a horrifying experience and yet, the entire time, at her left hemisphe ... Show More
1h 5m
Mar 2023
Field Trip: An Airport Full of Neuroscientists
I’m at the airport and there are hundreds of brain scientists everywhere. So I swallowed my dignity/anxiety and approached strangers about the neuroscience they do. The result is a bushel of info on cravings, sleep, consciousness, addiction, dopamine, monogamy, Ozempic, toxins in ... Show More
57m 41s
Aug 2023
Neurotechnology (AI + BRAIN TECH) with Nita Farahany
Machine poets. ChatGPT fails. Neurological surveillance. Brain implants that treat depression. Is it scary? Cool? Let’s firehose some questions at Duke Law professor, neuro and bioethicist, author and TED speaker Dr. Nita Farahany. She explains the history of AI, the dawn of chat ... Show More
1h 19m