Summary: This program opens in the emergency room of a large hospital where head injuries are an all-too-common problem. The importance of the brain is evident from the skill and technology employed in ensuring that any damage to it is minimized. Using combinations of computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and advanced surgical techniques, the program shows why the brain is so...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program, Dr. Susan Greenfield expresses her belief that all aspects of human experience will eventually be explained in terms of the physical processes of the brain. Cases drawn from the history of brain research-from the earliest and crudest studies of the effects of brain injury to the latest data derived from brain surgery on patients who are awake and alert-offer insights both...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program explains research on the brain's processes: how individual parts of the brain work, how the brain uses pattern recognition rather than logic to interpret reality, which experiments with computer analogs have been successful and which have failed, and why. The program also provides interviews with some of the foremost researchers in the field, including neuroscientist John Hopfield,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Is there such a thing as a perfect recollection or photographic memory? This program examines that question and others related to the brain's ability to store knowledge. Using a wide range of examples, the program demonstrates that even the sharpest mental recording is subjective, selective, incomplete, even faulty. Students also learn how the performance of elite athletes may be tied to muscle...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: As far as Dr. Susan Greenfield is concerned, learning, memory, and even the process of individuation should be understood as a restless brain adapting moment by moment to the environment it encounters. This program charts the changes in the human brain as it develops from infancy to adulthood. The brain's extraordinary adaptability, as demonstrated by its ability to reorganize its neural...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Using sophisticated 3-D animation, this program, divided into two parts, takes viewers on a journey deep into the brain to study the effects of the three substances. The first part illustrates the major functions of the brain and shows how its principal cells, the neurons, communicate with each other through electrical and chemical signals. In the second part, animated molecules of nicotine,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: One patient cannot recognize a single face, including his own. Another cannot see anything that is moving. And a third can watch and understand a soccer game, but cannot recognize the black-and-white object they are kicking. Drawing on the experiences of people with rare forms of brain damage, this program featuring Dr. Susan Greenfield reveals the tricks and shortcuts used by the brain to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: The human nerve center never rests-even during sleep, it works diligently to process and build on the information gathered by our senses. Of course, healthy sleep is only one of many vital ingredients the brain needs to develop and thrive, as this film illustrates in detail. Other factors discussed in the program include ongoing contact with negative (deterring) and positive...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2003
View online at AVOD
Summary: How well do we understand the neurology of learning? Why does the brain's ability to learn diminish as we age? Can science find a way to extend brain "fitness," even for the very old? This program addresses those questions as it describes important medical experiments and studies. Topics include the central role of nerve cell connections in learning and cognitive development; cerebral...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Recent studies of cardiac arrest survivors suggest that near-death experiences may occur at times when the brain has actually stopped functioning. Drawing conclusions from that research, The Day I Died dares to suggest that the mind is not dependent on the brain-and that NDEs may confirm it. "That the mind is located in the brain is just a hypothesis. It's never been proven," says cardiologist...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The human body manufactures its own painkillers to ensure survival when injured. This program shows how opium and its derivatives, heroin and morphine, hijack that natural pain-numbing ability. Illustrating the brain's ability to alter its own chemistry when attacked by drugs, the program depicts the process by which brain receptors become desensitized and thus addicted. Tranquilizers-and the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The human brain is made up of the same biological building blocks as the rest of the body, and yet somehow it manages to generate consciousness. In this program, Dr. Susan Greenfield seeks to understand the human body's most remarkable phenomenon-and explains why the existence of each mind's private world of experiences and feelings is actually more incredible than the fact that life on Earth...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Are the brain and the mind one and the same? How big a role does environment play in cognitive development? Does consciousness have a physical location? This program explores these and other fundamental questions concerning the evolution and function of the human brain. Computer graphics and commentary from an array of leading international neuroscientists provide insights into the human...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program follows the physiological development of the human brain from conception through the growth of the neurological system in utero, to the moment of birth, when an amazing variety of brain functions are already apparent. The camera continues to follow a child to the age of eight, as a whole range of motor and cognitive skills appears-some as simple as focusing the eyes, others as...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program explores the brain and nervous system, using the analogy of computers and the Internet. Topics discussed include electrical impulses and how nerve messages travel; parts of the brain and their functions; how the brain and spinal cord are protected; the senses; and diseases, drugs, and their effects on the brain and nervous system.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program focuses on how a brain grows from a fertilized egg and how our brains change, even after birth, right up to old age. The establishment of connections between brain cells occurs not only in the womb, but also after birth. These connections can be modified, or even abolished, in accordance with certain changes in the environment. Hence, the development of the brain is a little like...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Perhaps the most intriguing field of medicine is the one that seeks to understand consciousness itself. This program provides a tour of the most advanced work in brain research and cognitive science, as well as the latest applications of these discoveries in treating patients with brain disorders. Using MRI and EEG to determine areas of brain activity, researchers explore the connection between...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program looks at the various areas that brain researchers are now exploring: What kind of brain chemistry can explain memory? If long-term memory is a kind of permanent pattern on the fabric of the mind, what structural changes occur in the brain? Are different types of memory located in different areas of the brain? Are specific memories stored in separate places? What is the process of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Is the human brain hardwired for religion? This program examines work in the emerging field of neurotheology, focusing on links between religious ecstasy and the brain's temporal lobes. Dr. Michael Persinger, who has spent much of his career pursuing such a connection, uses magnetic field resonance to test his theories on renowned atheist Richard Dawkins. Inversely, Dr. Andrew Newberg performs...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Although the human brain remains a mystery, it is gradually yielding to scientific inquiry-either as the main focus of study or in comparison with other forms of intelligence. This program features doctors and scientists who work with human, animal, or artificial brains in order to understand emotion, anatomical movement, and decision making. Experiments and case studies include the treatment...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: With a 90 percent match between the mouse and human genomes, mice are helping researchers to better understand the human brain. In this NewsHour program, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen-founder of the Allen Institute for Brain Science-and the Institute's chief scientific officer talk about the Allen Brain Atlas, an interactive 3-D map of gene expression in the mouse brain. Together with...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: IQ used to be the standard by which all were judged. Today, EQ allows for a broader understanding that encompasses attributes such as logical, linguistic, musical, kinetic, and emotional intelligences. This program provides an in-depth analysis of intelligence, including how it is defined and its neural components. Leading experts such as Harvard's Howard Gardner; Daniel Goleman, author of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: From prenatal Mozart to hothousing, the debate surrounding intelligence and how it is best cultivated is a controversial one. But is there really an optimal window of opportunity for neural development? This program invites John T. Bruer, author of The Myth of the First Three Years; Colin Blakemore, of Oxford University; UCLA's Paul Thompson; Bill Greenough, of the University of Illinois; and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In many ways our brains may be like those of animals, but in our capacity to think, to remember, and to create we are much different. This program looks at some of the reasons for these differences, exploring the neural structure of the human brain, our physiological brain capacity, and the use of memory and symbols.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006