Author: This Is Your Brain producer
Dr. Stieg talks to biological anthropologist Helen Fisher about the four hormonal systems that drive our relationship styles, and how they can predict whether love will last. Dr. Stieg: Earlier you mentioned, you know, the phases of romantic love, sexual attraction and bonding and the different brain regions that are activated during those components of being in love. Do those regions of the brain crosstalk and do they balance each other out? Dr. Fisher: Yeah, it’s a great question. They definitely crosstalk. Now, for example, when you fall madly in love with somebody, you’re driving up the dopamine system in…
Dr. Helen Fisher, one of the world’s foremost authorities on love, explains what happens in the brain when we experience romantic or sexual attraction, how that changes in long-term relationships, and why anti-depressants can make you fall out of love with your spouse. Dr. Stieg: You know when you meet someone and the chemistry is right, but feeling those butterflies and hearing the bells isn’t really happening in your heart. It’s because of hormones and neurotransmitters acting up in the brain, which, as a neurosurgeon, is the sexiest organ in the body. Our guest today has taken the study of…
New York Times journalist Alissa Rubin talks with Dr. Stieg about the cognitive and emotional effects of her injuries, and the treatments that helped get her back to work and to her life. Dr. Stieg: Hello, I’m here again with Alissa Rubin and we were talking before about her trauma and the subsequent events that resulted in depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and I wanted to pick up from that area again. Did you recognize that you were depressed or did somebody have to tell you that? Alissa Rubin: I recognized it but didn’t want to admit it to myself…
Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times journalist Alissa Rubin talks with Dr. Stieg about the helicopter crash that seriously injured her, and the long road to healing her body and her brain. Dr. Stieg: I’m happy to have my patient, the New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Alissa Rubin. As our special guest in 2014 Alyssa was seriously injured and nearly killed in a helicopter crash in the Middle East. Her skull was fractured in addition to many serious injuries so often with traumatic brain injury, we hear about the events, but have no idea about…
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. Phil Stieg: Hello,…
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. Plus…the curious case of Mr. Phineas Gage. Phil Stieg: Hello. I’d like to welcome Professor Iain McGilchrist, a psychiatrist, philosopher, neuroscientist, and literary scholar from Oxford University. Everyone knows that our brains are made up of left and right…