This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg Weill Cornell Medicine Neurological Surgery

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.
Plus... revisiting Timothy Leary's rise and fall as he turned on, tuned out, and dropped out.
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 

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.
Plus... those rare folks who can never forget a day in their lives.
 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 

Synesthesia is the mysterious mingling of the senses that creates the experience of "seeing" sounds or "hearing" colors. Neurologist Richard E. Cytowic, M.D. has spent his career exploring this remarkable phenomenon, and has some fascinating insight into how these sensations are formed in the brain -- and how we might use it to reunite our fractured society.
Plus... meet the man whose extreme form of synesthesia mingled all five of his senses! 
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

Most of us talk with our hands, some more than others, but what are we really saying? Susan Goldin-Meadow, PhD, professor of psychology and comparative human development at the University of Chicago, is an expert on gestures – what they mean, why they don't always agree with what words we are using, and even how they develop in blind children who have never seen them.
Plus... why you should never use the thumbs-up sign in Iran!
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

Menopause can wreak havoc on mood and body temperature as it signals the end of fertility, but some of the biggest changes it causes are in the brain. Emily Jacobs, assistant professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at UC Santa Barbara, explains how the precipitous decline in estrogen during the "change of life" disrupts the endocrine system and makes a woman's brain more like... a man's! Plus: Hear from real women describing the wide range of effects they experienced.
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
 

Is the deluge of digital media killing our ability to focus? Psychologist Gloria Mark, a professor in the Department of Informatics at University of California, Irvine, explains how we are shaped by what we pay attention to – and why today’s short snippets of everything are reinforcing short attention spans. Learn how playing a few minutes of Solitaire on your phone can help relieve stress, and why it can be so hard to stop. And in case you need to ask, you’ll find out why it’s such a bad idea to give an iPad to a baby.
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