The Mercurial Genius of Candace Pert
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
Release Date: 07/26/2024
Transcendental Meditation
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
Dr. Tony Nader, an academic, author, and the leader of the Transcendental Meditation movement, knows how you can find inner peace. TM is like a deep dive to the stillness at the bottom of the ocean, leaving the turbulent waves far above. Learn how the body and mind are inextricably bound, and how meditation can improve mental and physical health. Plus… what the Beatles taught us about meditation. For more information, transcripts, and all episodes, please visit For more about Weill Cornell Medicine Neurological Surgery, please visit For more about Dr. Nader visit - ...
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Making Sense of Creativity
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
Why are some people capable of creating music, art, books, or new technologies, seemingly out of thin air? Where do imagination and creativity live in the brain - and how can we tap them? Neuroscientist and author Anna Abraham reveals the three elements of creativity and explores the myths surrounding it, from its links to mental illness to the effects of psychiatric drugs on it. The good news? Creativity does not decline with age, so for some of us, the best may be yet to come. For more information, transcripts, and all episodes, please visit For more about Weill Cornell Medicine...
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Talking With Dolphins
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
Dolphins have large, complex brains that are a lot like the human model -- what if we could get inside their heads and communicate with them? Meet cognitive psychologist and marine mammal scientist Diana Reiss, PhD, who has been doing just that. Turns out our underwater friends have a lot going on in their brains, if only we could learn to decode it. Plus... Hear from one of the musician/scientists who discovered that whales produce actual songs (and whose work inspired a beautiful and novel album by Judy Collins) For more information, transcripts, and all episodes, please visit For more...
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The Mercurial Genius of Candace Pert
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
Candace Pert discovered the opioid receptor, created a drug to stop AIDS in the brain, and identified stress as a cause of disease. She also inadvertently unleashed the overdose epidemic, got herself kicked out of the NIH, and was denied credit for much of her work. Pert was a trailblazing yet mercurial neuroscientist, a woman who made her male boss famous but has been largely forgotten herself. She was also a rebel, a workaholic... and a bit mad. In this episode, Pamela Ryckman, the author of a new biography of Pert, reveals some of the wilder tales about her and explains why she remains...
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Whispers & Tingles – ASMR with Craig Richard
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
ASMR, or the autonomous sensory meridian response, is a state of deep calm accompanied by a sense of “brain tingles.” Not everyone experiences it, but if you do, you know what triggers it: a whisper or other soft sounds, a gentle touch or movement, even watching a Bob Ross video. Physiologist Craig Richard explains the science behind ASMR, and why in some people induces a deeply relaxing response that can resolve insomnia, relaxation, and stress. Plus: Who are the top “artists” of ASMR? For more information, transcripts, and all episodes, please visit For more about...
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AI: Reverse Engineering the Brain
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
We will never create true artificial intelligence (if we really want that) until we know more about how the human brain works. Tech entrepreneur and author Max Bennett explains how AI learns, where it falls short, and how it stacks up against our own intelligence. As it turns out, what's easy for humans is hard for AI, but AI is better at doing some things that are quite hard for us. Mostly, what AI teaches us is just how remarkable the human brain is - it is much better at continued learning than AI is, and it requires less input to come to conclusions. But... Can we trust it? For more...
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Decoding Brainwaves Into Language
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
Language originates as brain signals -- mysterious lines of squiggles -- that somehow turn into speech. Meet the neuroscientist who is turning those squiggles into conversations, using artificial intelligence to translate brain activity into words and sentences. Dr. Edward Chang of UCSF talks with Dr. Stieg about the painstaking "magic" of decoding that has allowed a paralyzed man to speak after 20 years of aphasia, essentially live streaming signals from his brain and transforming them into language. Plus - Why are A.I. voices always female? For more information, transcripts, and all...
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Outsmarting Anxiety
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
We are programmed by evolution to be anxious - fear was a lifesaver for early humans! So are why are some 21st-century humans crippled by it? Catherine Pittman, PhD, chair of psychology at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, is an expert on how different parts of the brain create and manage anxiety, and how to overcome it. Learn just how fast your amygdala responds to a threat (before we even perceive it), and how your cortex jumps in to process the information. Turns out your amygdala has been watching too much Cortex TV, and you can train your brain to change the channel. Plus... the rare...
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Exploring The Magic Mushroom
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
It's effective against depression, can help you stop smoking, even ease end-of-life distress. It's non-addictive, naturally occurring, and has been used for thousands of years -- but you can't have it. It's psilocybin, the compound that creates the "magic" in dozens of species of mushrooms. Johns Hopkins researcher Albert Garcia-Romeu, Ph.D. knows just how magical it is. He's conducting research on psilocybin's therapeutic value for everything from persistent Lyme disease to a range of mental health conditions. Find out what this psychedelic drug can do, and why it got such a bad reputation....
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A Memory Workout
This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg
Can't remember the fourth item on your grocery list? Nelson Dellis, a professional "memory athlete," can remember 100 things or more (though he still may forget the butter). Hear how Dellis learned to memorize lists so long that he became a five-time USA Memory Champion, and how you can use some of his strategies to improve your own memory. Dellis explains how he uses tricks like the "memory palace" and mnemonic devices to recall lengthy lists with perfect accuracy. In an era when cell phones are making memory superfluous, you can regain some of those lost skills by using his techniques....
info_outlineCandace Pert discovered the opioid receptor, created a drug to stop AIDS in the brain, and identified stress as a cause of disease. She also inadvertently unleashed the overdose epidemic, got herself kicked out of the NIH, and was denied credit for much of her work. Pert was a trailblazing yet mercurial neuroscientist, a woman who made her male boss famous but has been largely forgotten herself. She was also a rebel, a workaholic... and a bit mad. In this episode, Pamela Ryckman, the author of a new biography of Pert, reveals some of the wilder tales about her and explains why she remains largely unknown even though her discoveries were truly life-changing. Plus... Other women in science who remain mostly hidden from history.
For more information, transcripts, and all episodes, please visit https://thisisyourbrain.com
For more about Weill Cornell Medicine Neurological Surgery, please visit https://neurosurgery.weillcornell.org