All In The Mind

It's unsettling to leave the house and think—did I turn the stove off, or leave the door unlocked? Now recent research shows that family can play a critical role in treatment and recovery.

When a child's mental wellbeing is disturbed by stress or trauma it can have life long effects. How infant mental health is nurtured and what can put it at risk.

The corpus callosum links one side of our brain to the other. It’s not essential for survival, but in some people it’s missing or malformed, causing quite mild to extreme disabilities. The good news is that research is now revealing that it holds intriguing secrets about brain plasticity.

When a professor of artificial intelligence had disturbing brain injury symptoms as a result of a concussion, he lost his former self—but encouraged by the potential of brain plasticity he changed the course of his life.

Almost everywhere you turn you hear of the benefits of mindfulness. Long-term Buddhist meditators and neuroscientists are now getting together to share the experience and the science of meditation.

Hopefully you haven’t heard of the psychiatric disorder CDHD—because it describes the brain of a zombie. For All In The Mind, neuroscientists and zombie movie nerds unite in the quest for a better understanding of neuroscience—via the zombie brain.

Can problems in your brain make you commit a crime? And if so, how much responsibility is yours? These are the complex questions being raised by the emerging field of neurolaw.

In Australia 700,000 people are living with an acquired brain injury—often as a result of a traffic accident, fall, or contact sport. The injuries range in severity, but new research is emerging that even concussions after one or two knocks to the head should be taken seriously.

Researchers, therapists and neurologists are using music to treat people with brain injuries, and disorders such as Alzheimer’s, dementia and depression. Listening to and performing music can help manage anxiety, aggression, and improve quality of life for these patients.

Placebos, virtual reality gaming, Pavlov’s-dog-style conditioning, and just plain care are some of the proven ways that our minds can treat and heal our bodies. There’s a growing body of scientific evidence confirming what we may already suspect about how mental states can affect health—but what are the limits of mind-body medicine?

Do you, or does someone you know, live with chronic pain? At least 1 in 5 Australians do, and very often the cause of their pain is not evident—it makes treatment particularly challenging. Scientists are now realising that the brain plays a crucial role in how pain is experienced, and it’s opening the way for some innovative treatments.

We’re in the midst of an ice epidemic—or are we? It's known that current methamphetamine users are switching from speed to the stronger form of crystal meth or ice. As a result, the risk of addiction and associated mental health problems is increasing.

Lisa Genova is a neuroscientist turned author. Little did she know that her first self-published novel about early onset dementia—Still Alice—would hit the best seller list. Now Lisa Genova has applied her engaging storytelling to an Irish Catholic family overtaken by the genetic neurological condition called Huntington’s disease.

When people reach a crisis point with their mental health, the last thing they need is to feel they are being judged and their reality denied. More than 25 years ago in a small town in Western Lapland, a group of clinicians decided to do things differently.

9/11 was an inside job, Princess Diana was murdered in a government plot, and the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked. There’s a conspiracy theory for just about every major event—but believers aren’t just on the paranoid fringe, wearing tin foil hats.

Australian boxing champion from the 1960s Johnny Famechon describes the fight of his life. His remarkable recovery from brain injury was the result of a Goju Karate expert's intensive movement therapy, his wife's unwavering support and his own determination.

Locked in the darkness of your skull—the grey mush of your brain devises rich narratives of your reality and identity. Neuroscientist David Eagleman draws on his extensive brain research to tell the story of you. What creates reality? How does the brain determine what you see, how do you make decisions and could new technology expand what it means to be human?

Our relationship with music begins at birth, if not before, and plays a role in the formation of our identity when we are young. Now a heart-warming movement called Music & Memory is creating personalised music playlists for residents with dementia in nursing homes—who use their mobile device to hear it.

Leading edge science is discovering that our brain and mental health are influenced by what goes on in the gut.

We hear the story of one man’s experience of this delusion, and a psychiatrist who reflects on the impact that popular culture can have on our mental health.

Most people tend to think of autism as a male disorder, the character in the film Rain Man often comes to mind. But emerging research shows that girls often have different symptoms which cause them to slip through the net.

Are children are more anxious these days? There’s no way to be really sure, but according to some researchers anxiety is one of the more common mental health problems that kids are facing.

Happiness—it’s elusive, ephemeral, and greatly desired. But how do you nail it? One writer in New York created a personal ‘Happiness Project’. After intensive research, she spent one year becoming a happier version of herself, and some of the discoveries surprised her.

Imagine being in your 40s and having a diagnosis of dementia—at the prime of your life. Twenty years ago this happened to Christine Bryden. Despite having difficulty remembering what she’s doing—often from one minute to the next—she’s applied her extraordinary insight into the disease for the benefit of others.

Scientists and philosophers have been perplexed by our sense of the self for millennia. Now, by investigating neurological conditions which disrupt the self—such as body identity disorder, schizophrenia, and the doppelganger effect—neuroscience is finding new clues.