All In The Mind

How far would you go to reveal your true, super-smart inner self? Athletes have used substances and techniques to enhance their performance physically. Now there are ways to boost your intelligence—which we don’t suggest you try it at home. But David Adam did—to try and cheat his way into Mensa using smart pills and brain hacks. But this also brought moral dilemmas.

Neurodiversity is a radical social movement challenging the notion of what’s normal and what’s a disorder. What better place to explore neurodiversity than in the arts and theatre—we hear from actors on the autism spectrum and a synesthete using her perceptions of colour and music to create art.

Some exciting news has just been published in the Psychiatric Journal JAMA about the potential mental health benefits of psychedelic drug research. It’s likely that within the next 5 years researchers will know whether the psychoactive drug commonly known as ecstasy—methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA—can be used to treat psychiatric disorders.

Trauma has a deep impact on the lives of survivors. It’s associated with mental and physical health problems, including substance abuse, and neuroscience is showing that a traumatic memory is quite different from a normal memory. Mental health services now realise that early trauma must be taken into account as an essential part of recovery from mental distress.

Do you never forget a face? You might be pretty good—but are you a super-recogniser? Research is trying to identify our face recognition abilities, and how we compare to those of a computer algorithm.

If something goes wrong with the brain we often assume that things can’t change much—especially with extreme conditions. But neuroplasticity, and the almost limitless capacity of the brain to remould itself, is beginning to turn that assumption on its head.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a mental illness which causes deep pain and tumultuous relationships. But there is good therapy.

Borderline Personality Disorder is the cause of deep pain—yet it is steeped in stigma and often not thought of as a legitimate disorder. But with good treatment it’s possible to live a normal and full life.

If you were given a date from the last five years could you say what day of the week it was? One young woman in Australia can remember every single day of her life since she was born. We hear about her life and the research she’s involved with—as a single participant.

Comedian Ruby Wax has teamed up with a Buddhist monk and a neuroscientist to explore how the mind works—and have a laugh at the same time. Ruby talks about her experience of depression, and whether her traumatic upbringing relates to her hilarious take on the human condition.

Most of us are vulnerable to forming bad habits and addictive behaviours— to binge eat, to smoke, take harmful drugs, or over-exercise. But if we better understood our craving mind we could mend our ways.

The faces of our friends and family are instantly recognisable to us—but about 1 in 50 of us say that looking at a face is like looking at a brick wall.

The compelling account of a woman who lived with dissociative identity disorder—and how she eventually became integrated.

Maude Julien was imprisoned by her father in an isolated mansion in France and subjected her to endless horrifying endurance tests in a plan to create a superhuman.

Are you a good singer, or are you only comfortable singing in the privacy of your shower? We explore a condition called congenital amusia—also known as tone deafness—and track a self-confessed bad singer trying to get back in tune.

There’s nothing like a favourite piece of music to lift your spirits, and music is known to play a powerful role in the healing process. Musician Andrew Schulman now uses music as medicine in hospital intensive care units.

Clinical depression is sometimes not helped by medication. One promising alternative treatment is TMS: a magnetic pulse passed through the skin to a focussed part of the brain.

Joint winners of the 2017 Australian Mental Health Prize—Allan Fels, who focusses on improving our mental health care system; and mental health advocate Janet Meagher.

In this age of contested political issues and unchecked information, we examine the psychological tricks and the quirks of neuroscience which often lead us to believe untruths and ignore the facts.

Fans of All In The Mind might enjoy this new podcast from the ABC! Sum of All Parts tells extraordinary stories from the world of numbers. Like this story, about a young man with an unusual type of epilepsy, where he hears what are called ‘musical auras’ whenever he has a seizure.

The world would end on Judgement Day—21 May, 2011. Some people were convinced, others were sceptical. But the science of belief may explain post-truth politics, and why fake news can appear so believable.

A neuroscientist and entrepreneur in rural India is researching on the way brain activity may be influenced by modern progress, and even by income.

A leading professor of psychology says that seeing mental distress as an illness is the wrong approach. We need a model of care which supports people who are distressed due to their social and life circumstances.

It’s not always helpful for someone to be labelled as having an illness when they are emotionally distressed. Sometimes simple support can make more of a difference to a person’s outlook. A possible shift in the provision of mental services might be to increase the provision of social justice.

For some people certain sounds not only annoy them, but send them into panic, anxiety, and even rage. This hyper-sensitivity is a recently discovered condition called misophonia. We discuss the the research trying make sense of it.