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44:42

On Alzheimers Disease From Dr.Rudolph Tanzi

Hes professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Massachusetts General Hospitals Genetic and Aging Unit. In the early 80s, Tanzi worked on an experiment that made disease genes identifiable. Since then, Tanzi has been on the forefront of Alzheimer research. His new book is called Decoding Darkness: The Search for the Genetic Causes of Alzheimers Disease (Perseus Books).

Interview
21:16

Psychiatrist and Neurologist Todd Feinberg

His new book is called Altered Egos: How the Brain Creates the Self. What is the self? and what is the relationship between the brain and selfhood? Feinberg uses the stories and interesting cases of his patients to try and answer these questions from a neurological and psychological standpoint. Feinberg claims that the way patients with brain damage or disorders like alien hand syndrome talk about themselves can tell us a lot about how the brain creates itself.

Interview
43:00

Andrew Newberg and Michael Baime

Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Michael Baime, M.D. discuss God and the brain: tracking transcendence. Newberg conducted brain scans while people prayed and meditated to see if he could locate the brain function that caused the feeling of oneness and the presence of God. His book on the subject is called Why God Wont Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, by Newberg, Eugene DAqulli M.D. and Vince Rause (Ballantine).

21:37

The Discovery of the Brain

Health and Science writer Carl Zimmer's new book is Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain-and How it Changed the World. It's about Thomas Willis, the scientist whose research on the workings of the brain during the 17th century became the basis of modern neurology. Zimmer's work appears regularly in The New York Times, National Geographic, Newsweek, Discover, Natural History, and Science. He is also a John S. Guggenheim Fellow and received the Pan-American Health Organization Award for Excellence in International Health Reporting.

Interview
34:51

Journalist Steven Johnson

He's the author of the new book, Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life. He writes the monthly "Emerging Technology" column for Discover and is contributing editor at Wired. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The New Yorker, Harper's, and The Guardian. Johnson is also the author of Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, which was named as a finalist for the 2002 Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Interview
36:33

Dr. Fred Volkmar on Asperger's Syndrome

Volkmar is a leading researcher in Asperger's Syndrome, generally considered to be a form of autism characterized by deficits in social interaction and non-verbal communication. In the early 1990s, Volkmar led the team that helped develop the definition of autism used by the American Psychiatric Assoc. He is the Irving B. Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology at the Yale University Child Study Center.

Interview
43:28

Temple Grandin: A Key to Animal Behavior

Temple Grandin is one of the nation's top designers of livestock facilities. She is also autistic. Grandin's new book is Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior.

Scientist and animal behaviorist Temple Grandin
23:08

Tales of a Medical Renegade: 'The Lobotomist'

Journalist Jack El-Hai is the author of The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness. El-Hai is the executive vice president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and a winner of the June Roth Memorial Award for Medical Journalism.

Interview
22:40

E. Fuller Torrey on Mental Illness

Dr. E. Fuller Torrey is a research psychiatrist specializing in schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. He has authored many books on the subject of mental illness and is president of the Treatment Advocacy Center, as well as associate director for laboratory research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute.

Interview
20:52

A Surgeon's-Eye View of the Brain

Neurosurgeon Katrina Firlik's new book is Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside. Firlik is now a private practitioner in Greenwich, Conn., and a clinical assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine. She is also the daughter of a surgeon

Interview
31:59

Author Richard Powers

Richard Powers recently won the National Book Award for his book The Echo Maker. Part mystery and part science, the novel is about a 27-year-old man who falls into a coma after a car crash and wakes up with a rare brain disorder. Powers' previous books include The Gold Bug Variations and The Time of Our Singing.

Interview
35:35

Nora Volkow: No, Really, This Is Your Brain on Drugs

Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, ranks as one of the U.S.'s leading addiction researchers. She's helped demonstrate that addiction is in fact a disease — a disease of the brain — and that all addictions, whether it's to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex, gambling or even food, are more alike than was previously thought.

Volkow, who's the great-granddaughter of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, grew up in Mexico City — in the house where her famous ancestor was assassinated.

Interview
43:35

'Musicophilia' Examines Music in the Mind

In the book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, neurologist Oliver Sacks explores the relationship between music and the mind.

Through a series of case studies ranging from songs stuck in one's mind to a newfound passion for concert piano after being struck by lightning, the professor of Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the NYU School of Medicine examines the complexity of human beings and the role music plays in our lives.

Interview
32:53

Martha Weinman Lear, Plumbing the Forgetful Mind

For all of us who have ever wandered into a room only to freeze, wondering blankly, "Why did I come in here, again?," Martha Weinman Lear has an answer. Lear, the author of Where Did I Leave My Glasses?, discusses the twin issues of memory loss and aging — what degree of forgetfulness is normal, and what can be done about it?

43:30

Temple Grandin On 'The Best Life For Animals'

In her new book, Animals Make Us Human, Temple Grandin examines common notions of animal happiness and concludes that dogs, cats, horses, cows and zoo animals — among other creatures — possess an emotional system akin to that of humans.

Interview
32:25

Parkinson's Disease: A Family History

Parkinson's disease is part of journalist Dave Iverson's personal history: His father had it, his brother has it and he has it. Now, a new PBS "Frontline" documentary, My Father, My Brother, and Me chronicles Iverson's attempt to understand the disease.

Interview

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