This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg

Do Our Dogs Really Love Us ?

Dogs and the humans who cherish them have a unique bond unlike any other. We wonder all too often, do our dogs love us as much as we love them? What are they really thinking? Are we projecting our own feelings onto t​hese treasured family members in trying to understand them? In this "classic" episode first released in 2020, Emory University neuroscientist Dr. Gregory Berns, discusses some of his extraordinary findings. After spending years using MRI imaging technology to study the human brain, ...

Music’s Powerful Impact on the Brain

In this classic episode recorded live at the Juilliard School in the fall of 2019 Dr. Stieg visits with world-renowned soprano Renée Fleming - a leading advocate for research and public education on the therapeutic power of music to heal the mind. Music’s psychological and neurological impact can help people suffering with dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other brain disorders, and even restore speech after a stroke. Fleming also explores the brain’s incredible musical memory mechanism and why...

Controlled Hallucination

What world do you live in? You may think your experience of life comes from the outside, with your brain processing sensory information as it's received. Anil Seth, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex in England, takes a different view. Tune in as Dr. Seth explains how your brain is actually creating your reality, not just interpreting it. Plus... why the brain is a "prediction machine," and how anesthesia is more like death than sleep. For more info...

Connecting the Heart and Brain

The brain and the heart are in constant communication, sending signals that control and respond to each other, so it’s no surprise that what’s good for one is what’s good for the other. Dr. Robert Harrington, an esteemed cardiologist and the new Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, joins us today to explore the fascinating conversations that go on between these two most important organs. From the electrical signals sent from the brain to the oxygenated blood flow the heart sends back, find out what k...

Using All 5 of Your Minds

Forget the standard IQ test - that only measures a very narrow definition of intelligence. Meet psychologist Howard Gardner, professor of cognition and education at Harvard and one of the foremost thinkers and writers in the fields of education, cognition, and multiple intelligences. His fascinating research into different kinds of intelligence (there are 8!) has the potential to revolutionize education, turn our kids into better citizens, and help us all identify our purpose in life. Learn more...

More Than a Feeling - Your Pain Is Made in Your Brain

Pain can be felt anywhere in the body, but it all originates in the same place: the brain. Lorimer Moseley, a professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of South Australia and a specialist in how the brain produces pain signals, joins us today to talk about how pain is created as a protective strategy. Your brain, which is constantly monitoring your environment for signs of danger vs safety, sends pain signals when it detects a painful stimulus (a process called nociception). Moseley ...

Is Your Baby Smarter Than a Robot?

Babies and toddlers have truly outstanding brains - they absorb information broadly, quickly, and indiscriminately as they learn about the world, with processing speeds that leave AI-powered robots in the dust. Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology and affiliate professor of Philosophy at U.C. Berkeley, has been studying baby brains for decades, and she joins us today to talk about how we could look to them to make computers smarter. https://thisisyourbrain.com/...

Training To Be Yourself

Your early experiences literally change the way you think and feel about the world -- they even shape what you see and hear. Dr. Chantel Prat, a cognitive neuroscientist and professor at the University of Washington, studies how variations in brain wiring make each of us unique individuals and drive our understanding of each other, and of the world. In this episode, learn which parts of the brain are "experience-expectant" (waiting for input on how to develop), and why trade-offs in the brain ar...

Drowning In Distraction

Our brains evolved for a simpler life, and today they struggle to cope with a deluge of distraction from technology. Dr. Adam Gazzaley, professor of neurology at the University of California San Francisco, reveals why the brain loves multi-tasking even though it's so bad for productivity; why "single-tasking" is so hard to relearn; and why 60-year-olds can't filter out irrelevant information. Plus... a prescription video game that can help kids with ADHD and others change their brains to find be...

Music As Medicine

Speech therapists have long used music to help patients regain their voices after stroke or brain injury. Today's music therapists are going even further, developing strategies that use music on patients with Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, cognitive issues, and more. Hear from Neurologic Music Therapist Caitlin Hebb about how the rhythm and rhyme of music work on memory, gait, and language. https://www.medrhythmstherapy.com/teamcaitlin Plus... what's that earworm?...

Tales of a Hijacked Brain

Unlike a broken bone or clogged artery, a brain that goes awry due to disease or injury—or even an errant molecule—causes weird and unpredictable changes in personality. Hear some of the bizarre tales of tiny particles that alter behavior from neurologist Sara Manning Peskin, author of A Molecule Away From Madness. https://saramanningpeskin.com/ Plus... how parasites hijack animal brains, sometimes turning a host into a zombie in their quest to reproduce....

Game Changer: A Concussion Revolution

The impact of mild traumatic brain injury extends far beyond the gridiron – concussions can happen anywhere, including playing fields, bike paths, and war zones. Kenneth Kutner, PhD, who specializes in head injuries and has been the team neuropsychologist for the New York Giants for 30 seasons, joins us to talk about what the latest research has revealed about concussion and how it affects physical health and cognitive function. From the military to the NFL, and even in the corporate boardroom, ...

Thinking In Pictures

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.

Taking Laughter Seriously

Giggles, guffaws, or belly laughs -- whenever we crack up, we're communicating more than we realize. Laughter, says Dr. Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College London as well as a standup comic, is pretty complicated. It's a way of expressing group membership and affection (as long as nobody is laughing AT you) and involves a physical reaction as well as an emotional one. Scott can make you laugh -- and then explain why you did!

Finding Your Soul In Ice (reprise)

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. Plus... contrasting Ice with Fire. http://www.wimhofmethod.com/...

Marketing to Your Primal Brain

With each of us receiving more than 30,000 messages a day - everything from news headlines to print, TV, radio, and online advertising - how do today's marketing professionals have a chance of getting a product or service to stand out? Dr. Christophe Morin is a "neuromarketer," combining his expertise in neuroscience with his passion for understanding how to persuade people to do or buy almost anything. This week, Dr. Morin talks about the "emotional cocktail" that is our response to advertising...

I've Got (Circadian) Rhythm!

Your brain, your heart -- in fact, every cell in your body -- has its own clock telling you when to be alert and when to pack it in. You probably know that jet lag and daylight savings time affect that clock, but did you know that the food you eat (and when you eat it) as well as your activity level can also wreak havoc on it? Emily Manoogian, PhD, chronobiologist and clinical researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, explains how shift work, long flights, eating at t...

Mesmerized By Magic

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-br...

The “Reading Brain” In A Digital World

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...

The Mother of All Brain Changes

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.che...

Unlearning Addiction

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 ho...

Engaging Your Spiritual Core

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 awa...

Presence: Hallucination or Visitation?

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...

Thinking in Pictures

Speaking Truth to Trauma

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.shaili...

Magic, Myths, and the Unconscious Mind

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/

The Other Side of A Stroke

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 Bra...

Secrets of the Sleeping Brain

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 di...

Cultivating Confidence (repeat)

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 goldfi...

The Neuroscience of “Movie Night”

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 t...