This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg

Near-death experiences may seem like the stuff of supermarket tabloids, but there are real patterns to what people report after coming close to departing this life.    Dr. Bruce Greyson has been studying near-death experiences   for decades and has stories to tell about out-of-body phenomena, that light at the end of the tunnel, and a near-universal finding of new meaning in life after coming clos...

The impact of mild traumatic brain injury extends far beyond the gridiron – concussions can happen anywhere, including playing fields, bike paths, and war zones. Kenneth Kutner, PhD, who specializes in head injuries and has been the team neuropsychologist for the New York Giants for 30 seasons, joins us to talk about what the latest research has revealed about concussion and how it affects physica...

Dogs and the humans who cherish them have a unique bond unlike any other. We wonder all too often, do our dogs love us as much as we love them? What are they really thinking? Are we projecting our own feelings onto t​hese treasured family members in trying to understand them? In this  "classic" episode first released in 2020, Emory University neuroscientist Dr. Gregory Berns, discusses some of his...

In this classic episode recorded live at the Juilliard School in the fall of 2019 Dr. Stieg visits with world-renowned soprano Renée Fleming - a leading advocate for research and public education on the therapeutic power of music to heal the mind. Music's psychological and neurological impact can help people suffering with dementia, Parkinson's disease, and other brain disorders, and even restore...

What world do you live in? You may think your experience of life comes from the outside, with your brain processing sensory information as it's received. Anil Seth, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex in England, takes a different view. Tune in as Dr. Seth explains how your brain is actually creating your reality, not just interpreting it. Plus... why...

The brain and the heart are in constant communication, sending signals that control and respond to each other, so it's no surprise that what's good for one is what's good for the other. Dr.  Robert Harrington, an esteemed cardiologist and the new Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, joins us today to explore the fascinating conversations that go on between these two most important organs. From the elec...

Forget the standard IQ test - that only measures a very narrow definition of intelligence. Meet psychologist Howard Gardner, professor of cognition and education at Harvard and one of the foremost thinkers and writers in the fields of education, cognition, and multiple intelligences. His fascinating research into different kinds of intelligence (there are 8!) has the potential to revolutionize edu...

Pain can be felt anywhere in the body, but it all originates in the same place: the brain. Lorimer Moseley, a professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of South Australia and a specialist in how the brain produces pain signals, joins us today to talk about how pain is created as a protective strategy. Your brain, which is constantly monitoring your environment for signs of danger vs sa...

Babies and toddlers have truly outstanding brains - they absorb information broadly, quickly, and indiscriminately as they learn about the world, with processing speeds that leave AI-powered robots in the dust. Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology and affiliate professor of Philosophy at U.C. Berkeley, has been studying baby brains for decades, and she joins us today to talk about how we could l...

Your early experiences literally change the way you think and feel about the world -- they even shape what you see and hear. Dr. Chantel Prat,   a cognitive neuroscientist and professor at the University of Washington, studies how variations in brain wiring make each of us unique individuals and drive our understanding of each other, and of the world. In this episode, learn which parts of the brai...

Our brains evolved for a simpler life, and today they struggle to cope with a deluge of distraction from technology. Dr. Adam Gazzaley, professor of neurology at the University of California San Francisco, reveals why the brain loves multi-tasking even though it's so bad for productivity; why "single-tasking" is so hard to relearn; and why 60-year-olds can't filter out irrelevant information. Plus...

Speech therapists have long used music to help patients regain their voices after stroke or brain injury. Today's music therapists are going even further, developing strategies that use music on patients with Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, cognitive issues, and more. Hear from Neurologic Music Therapist Caitlin Hebb about how the rhythm and rhyme of music work on memory, gait, and lang...

Unlike a broken bone or clogged artery, a brain that goes awry due to disease or injury—or even an errant molecule—causes weird and unpredictable changes in personality. Hear some of the bizarre tales of tiny particles that alter behavior from neurologist Sara Manning Peskin, author of A Molecule Away From Madness. https://saramanningpeskin.com/   Plus... how parasites hijack animal brains, someti...

The impact of mild traumatic brain injury extends far beyond the gridiron – concussions can happen anywhere, including playing fields, bike paths, and war zones. Kenneth Kutner, PhD, who specializes in head injuries and has been the team neuropsychologist for the New York Giants for 30 seasons, joins us to talk about what the latest research has revealed about concussion and how it affects physica...

Temple Grandin, PhD, wants kids -- especially those on the autism spectrum -- to start using their hands again. The woman Oliver Sacks called "the anthropologist on Mars" explains how our brains may be naturally wired to think in words, mathematics, or visuals, and there's nothing disordered about any of them. Dr. Grandin urges us to respect our young visual thinkers and celebrate their strengths...

Giggles, guffaws, or belly laughs -- whenever we crack up, we're communicating more than we realize. Laughter, says Dr. Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College London as well as a standup comic, is pretty complicated. It's a way of expressing group membership and affection (as long as nobody is laughing AT you) and involves a physical reaction as well as an emotional one. Scott can ma...

Extreme athlete Wim Hof has set records for immersion in icy water, and he recommends it for physical and mental health. Find out why his wife's suicide drove Hof to master controlled hyperventilation -- in breathtaking cold -- to become happy, strong, and healthy. (Everything else, he'll tell you, is BS!) Surprisingly, heart and brain science just may support the Wim Hof Method.  Plus... contrast...

With each of us receiving more than 30,000 messages a day - everything from news headlines to print, TV, radio, and online advertising - how do today's marketing professionals have a chance of getting a product or service to stand out?   Dr. Christophe Morin is a "neuromarketer," combining his expertise in neuroscience with his passion for understanding how to persuade people to do or buy almost a...

Your brain, your heart -- in fact, every cell in your body -- has its own clock telling you when to be alert and when to pack it in. You probably know that jet lag and daylight savings time affect that clock, but did you know that the food you eat (and when you eat it) as well as your activity level can also wreak havoc on it? Emily Manoogian, PhD, chronobiologist and clinical researcher at the Sa...

Magicians and illusionists rely on our brains' tendency to predict what comes next—and the surprise we feel when we're wrong. Dr. Luis Martinez, a neuroscientist at the Spanish National Research Council at the Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, Spain, explains how card tricks, illusions, and other sleight of hand is all about the brain's interpretation of reality. Hint: your reality is differe...

The human brain did not evolve to read -- but reading makes us more fully human as it opens up new worlds of understanding and empathy. Today, as we read so much by "skimming" on phones and tablets, we're missing out on the sophisticated thought processes that deep reading provides. Dr. Maryanne Wolf , director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA and the author...

New parents - especially moms - experience profound changes in the brain when they are expecting and welcoming a new baby. Health journalist Chelsea Conaboy explains how the caricature of "mommy brain" and its cognitive fog has it all wrong - parenthood actually has a neuroprotective effect, as the brain adapts to meeting the needs of children. It happens to all parents, not just mothers, but it's...

Teen brains are uniquely primed for addiction -- that age is all about novelty seeking, risk taking, and impulsivity, a developmental stage with strong drives and little inhibition -- and they "learn" the pleasures of alcohol and drugs a little too well. Judith Grisel, PhD, a behavioral neuroscientist at Bucknell University who has written widely (and from personal experience) about the brain chem...

You know what you have to do to tighten your abs (whether or not you actually do it), but do you know how to awaken your brain?   Lisa Miller, professor of psychology at Columbia University, explains how we humans are hard-wired for spirituality, but we've lost the connection. Faith-based traditions once connected most of us to something larger than ourselves, and without that we've entered a self...

Have you ever felt a "presence" - someone next to you, even speaking to you, when no one is there? Dr. Ben Alderson-Day, a psychologist at Durham University in the UK, studies the phenomena of felt presences, or what he calls "the unseen other." These experiences are not always symptoms of mental illness - these are universally reported and not always distressing. Learn what's happening in the bra...