This BBC Science Focus special edition reveals everything you ever wanted to know about the brain and how it works. IN THIS ISSUE… - How emotions fool your brain - What makes you you? - How to build a brain - The gory history of brain research - How we define mental illness
The Brain Explained from BBC Science Focus Magazine
Welcome
THE HISTORY OF BRAIN RESEARCH • Doctors and neuroscientists have been attempting to unravel the secrets of the brain for centuries – but it has proved a tough nut to crack. We look back at the major discoveries
TIMELINE: BRAIN SCIENCE
HOW YOUR BRAIN WORKS • Some say we know more about the ocean depths and distant cosmos than we do about the inner workings of our minds. Here’s what we currently do know about the brain
What makes you you? • Your brain is the most complex organ in your body – a mass of billions of neurons that keep you alive. But exactly how much do your genes and the outside world influence your little grey cells to shape your personality?
THE HIDDEN POWER OF YOUR BRAIN • The way you think about life can fend off infection, help you live longer and even spare you from the surgeon’s knife
THE ETHICS OF PLACEBO SURGERY • Sometimes there’s no substitute for surgery, but what if a placebo was as effective?
CAN WE MEASURE HAPPINESS? • Finding a smile scale: the search for a metric with which to quantify someone’s happiness
MEMORY • What if you could wipe out a painful moment from your past, implant a new memory, or easily remember everything for an exam? Soon, science will be able to shape your memories…
How does memory work? • Your recollection of life’s events is stored in networks of billions of neurons in different areas of the brain
Deleting memories • While memories can be a source of great pleasure, they can also be a source of great pain. So imagine being able to get rid of them
Memory boost • Your recollection of life’s events is stored in networks of billions of neurons in different areas of the brain
FEAR FACTOR • How scientists induced false memories in mice
TRICKS OF THE MIND • Psychologists are starting to figure out why we get false memories and as it turns out, they might even be useful…
THE DARK SIDE OF FALSE MEMORIES • What if consciously searching for long-buried memories is what drives us to create them?
ARE MEN FROM MARS AND WOMEN FROM VENUS? • The bestselling book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus claims the sexes think completely differently, as if we’re from distinct planets. But is this really the case? Do disparities between male and female brains dictate behaviour? And should we stereotype the sexes?
HOW EMOTIONS FOOL YOUR BRAIN • What if happiness doesn’t really exist? The way we think about our emotions doesn’t match up to what neuroscientists are seeing in our brains and behaviour, so what is actually going on inside our heads?
DICTIONARY CORNER • When you look at the variety of vocabulary used around the world to convey emotions, the traditional concepts of ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ start to look a little one-dimensional. Here are 10 of our favourites…
UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF THE BRAIN • Lab-grown mini-brains could hold the key to solving the biggest mysteries concerning human development and diseases
ALL THE ORGANOIDS • It’s not just brains: researchers are creating organoids from many different types of tissue, not only to study healthy development but also to discover what happens when things go wrong in order to develop future therapies. Here are some of the types they’ve managed to grow so far…
THE SCIENCE OF SANITY • Over the last century, almost 250 new psychiatric conditions have been identified, from attention deficit disorder to hoarding disorder. Here,...