All In The Mind

For centuries western philosophers proclaimed emotions the enemy of rational thought. It was believed that emotions stymied cool-headed thinking. But over the last twenty years a quiet scientific and philosophical revolution has taken place. Instead of being the font of irrationality, emotions are now routinely viewed as integral to intelligent action. But uncertainty still surrounds the emotions....

Shakespeare wrote of Julius Caesar's 'falling sickness'. Epilepsy was a mystery then and remains an enigmatic condition. It affects around 400,000 Australians and is typified by seizures and commonly a temporary loss of consciousness during the seizure. For centuries it has been associated with prophets, mystics and witchcraft. Most famously the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky believed epilepsy...

Dementia is commonly regarded as a cruel and relentlessly progressive disorder -where, over time, a person is stripped of their unique skills and identity. But recently clinicians have noted not only deficits in dementia patients, but that other cognitive skills remain intact - and can even become accentuated. Remarkably a number of patients with dementia develop new artistic abilities. According...

Nambucca Heads is a beautiful seaside town on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. But despite the tranquil environment, figures for postnatal depression in new mothers appear, at first glance, to be astronomical. Early research suggests half of new mothers suffer postnatal depression – five times the rate of their city sisters. The possible reasons for this includes the 15 per cent unemploymen...

The 20th century gave us many things, including democracy and modernism. But from these developments there grew specific types of mental illness – and we now have an increasing number of people suffering from narcissism and borderline personality disorder, according to Dr Theodore Millon – known as the grandfather of personality theory.

The writers Mary Gilmore and Arthur Conan Doyle and pianist Roger Woodward had at least one thing in common - a shared belief in the paranormal. But beyond personal anecdotes, there is no evidence to suggest that the paranormal actually exists. Yet the mystical intrigues and as science cannot give definitive statements on the nature of our minds or the possible limits of consciousness, an unfetter...

Last night you went to a party. The music and food were excellent – it was a great night out. But there's a problem. People tell you you're in hospital and that there was no party. But you remember it, so how can your memory be wrong? Welcome to the world of confabulation – the unintentional retrieval of false memories and false perceptions. People who confabulate experience their false memories a...

The majority of asylum seekers held in Australia's immigration detention centres are men. Detention centres impose severe restrictions and for men long-term incarceration can be devastating. Aamer Sultan is a doctor and refugee and he believes the three years he spent in detention changed the core of his identity. The director of the NSW Institute of Psychiatry, Dr Louise Newman, assists some of t...

What is the narrative of our lives - and can we influence the way our story is told? Michael White is a psychologist and therapist who in the 1970s co-founded the internationally successful therapeutic technique known as Narrative Therapy. Barbara Brooks is a memoir writer, biographer, and lecturer in life writing. Both listen to stories and then fill out the spaces in between. They join producer...

Cotard's syndrome is the belief that you have died, and for sufferers it is a terrifying state. Delusions can take many forms, from widespread paranoia to a specific and singular delusion - you might think an impostor has replaced your spouse. These misbeliefs are commonly associated with schizophrenia, but they can also occur in people with brain injuries, Huntington's and Parkinson's disease and...

One of the common first indicators of autism is the inability of the 18-month-old child to point with their index finger. Autism shapes behaviour and severely limits a person's ability to form relationships and communicate. But the complex causes of this disorder are obscure. We look at some of the research seeking answers, and a mother with a 3-year-old autistic son portrays life with this myster...

The World Health Organisation estimates that by the year 2020 depression will be the world's second most prevalent illness. The whirlwind of changes experienced by teenagers make them particularly vulnerable to this. Right around Australia high schools are looking at how to teach resilience to adolescents, and thus the skills that enable kids to spring back from adversity. And what does new neurob...

For many people becoming a parent is at the very heart of the meaning of life.

Each year Australians spend millions of dollars striving for personal perfection. There is a multi-billion-dollar industry to tell us how to do anything from remove excess fat on our bodies to bulk-up the mediocrity of our pay packets. The language of self help has seeped into almost every corner of our lives, with TV programs like Dr Phil giving daily advice for self improvement. Micki McGee - a...

The impact of memory loss can be utterly profound. We depend on our capacity to remember at every turn - from shopping lists to the names of our children. Brain injury can put a devastating spanner in the works. What memories can be recovered, what must be relearned, and what might be compensated for if you suffer the trauma of brain damage? In Part 3 of this BBC series on the science of memory, s...

Losing grip on your memory is terrifying. The brutal memories that plague those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can revive the visceral emotions of traumas past. In part 2 of this series on the science of memory, BBC presenter Pam Rutherford explores why memory goes haywire during both PTSD and depression, and the important role emotions play in the machinations of your mind's memory vault.

Do you remember your first kiss? The smell of your grandmother's perfume? How to do calculus? From birth through to death our brains will file away impressive amounts of information - names, faces, sounds, smells, and events, and the emotions that we bundle up with all of these. We're ever reliant on our ability to plunder our mind's memory vault at a moment's notice. But what are the neurological...

The 21st century has been coined the Century of the Brain. But as the exciting tools of neuroscience probe deeper – compelling ethical and philosophical questions over the privacy of our thoughts, identity and selfhood are coming to the fore. What if a brain scan revealed more about you than you really want to know? How might neuroscience be used in the courts? What can we confidently read from th...

None of us are getting any younger. As our bodies show signs of wear, so do our brains. We get forgetful, are confronted by new ideas and perplexed by new technologies. The world appears to be moving way too fast, as we sink into memories of the good ol' days. Eminent neuropsychologist and author Elkhonon Goldberg argues we have no excuse. His message - make your brain sweat if you want to enjoy y...

Ecstasy? Agony? Euphoria? Surprisingly little is known about what happens in the brain at the very peak of our sexual experience. A Dutch team have done the unthinkable and scanned the brains of men and women during orgasm. This week, Natasha Mitchell probes for the neurobiology of the human orgasm. Would you put your hand up to have your brain scanned? And is the technology good enough to take a...