A brief history of the brain, featuring a few of the major scientists and findings that have contributed to modern neuroscience.
Category: Video Content
The Divided Brain
Iain McGilchrist explains how our ‘divided brain’ has profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society. Taken from a lecture given by Iain McGilchrist as part of the RSA’s free public events programme.
Inside the brain in your gut
Did you know you have functioning neurons in your intestines – about a hundred millions of them?
In this TED talk, food scientist Heribert Watzke tells us about the “hidden brain” in our gut and the surprising things it makes us feel.
The Craving Brain
This is a terrific animated film which describes the pathology of addiction according to the theories presented in Dr. Ronald Ruden’s book The Craving Brain.
Ruden maintains that all addictions are “craving disorders” of the brain, caused by a “craving response” to life experiences and environment. A craving brain is a brain chemically out of balance, and the solution is to put it back into balance, or “biobalance.”
This video also outlines the role that chronic, inescapable stress contributes to addictive behavior.
Once we understand these responses, and understand the landscape of the craving brain, we can then learn to balance the brain (biobalance) by adopting healthy, serotonin-boosting habits.
A map of the brain
How can we begin to understand the way the brain works? The same way we begin to understand a city: by making a map. In this visually stunning talk, Allan Jones shows how his team is mapping which genes are turned on in each tiny region, and how it all connects up.
Inside the gaming brain
In this recent lecture, I translate cutting-edge neuroscience to answer such questions as how a gamers brain is ‘formed’ and illuminate the brain processes involved in generating creative games and using them to get the best from the brain.
Why do we have brains?
Neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert starts from a surprising premise: the brain evolved, not to think or feel, but to control movement. In this entertaining, data-rich talk he gives us a glimpse into how the brain creates the grace and agility of human motion.
What is dopamine?
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional responses, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move toward them.
Dopamine deficiency results in Parkinson’s Disease, and people with low dopamine activity may be more prone to addiction. Most abused drugs cause the release of dopamine and this is thought to contribute to their addictive properties.
This video describes some of the cognitive functions of dopamine in your brain.
Opening a window into the movies in our minds
In research, that brings to mind the movie Minority Report, a group of neuroscientists have found a way to see through another person’s eyes.
By reconstructing YouTube videos from viewers’ brain activity, researchers from UC Berkeley, have, in the words of Professor Jack Gallant, opened ” a window into the movies in our minds.”
Gallant’s coauthors of the study, published in Current Biology, watched YouTube videos inside a magnetic resonance imaging machine for several hours at a time. The team then used the brain imaging data to develop a computer model that matched features of the videos — like colors, shapes and movements — with patterns of brain activity. Subtle changes in blood flow to visual areas of the brain, measured by functional MRI, predicted what was on the screen at the time.
Lead author, Shinji Nishimoto, said the results of the study shed light on how the brain understands and processes visual experiences. The next line of research is to investigate if the technology could one day allow people who are paralyzed to control their environment by imagining sequences of movements.
What Is Alzheimer’s Disease?
inside-the-brain.com 