Summary: It can turn a hard-driving, energetic person into a walking zombie-exhausted, confused, and unable to work. This program sheds light on the mysterious illness known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which has no known cause or cure. Case studies feature a former congressional worker who eventually found it impossible to perform her duties on Capitol Hill, and a clinical psychologist whose personal...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The use of hypnosis in medicine has a long history. In the early days of anesthesia, surgeons often used the trance-inducing technique as a fail-safe measure-and today the concept is being revisited. This program presents a scientific investigation into the idea that hypnosis can reduce or even replace the use of anesthesia. Exploring the merits of making the procedure available to more...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Pain has a clear purpose: warning the body of invasion and other dangers. But the connection between pain and the human mind is more mysterious. This program examines various types of pain and their frequently elusive neurological aspects; it also presents methods, both clinical and alternative, that help long-term sufferers cope with debilitating pain. Distinguishing between acute and chronic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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: Instructive and gruesome in equal parts, this program enters the operating theater with eyes wide open to observe how "fast and dirty" surgery-inexpressibly brutal in the time before anesthesia-led to 19th-century breakthroughs in the area of pain management. Traveling from the Victorian era to the present day, the program charts the evolution of anesthesiology and reviews the trial-and-error...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Pain is usually thought of as a symptom of underlying illness - but what happens when the pain itself becomes the disease? Starting with the story of a girl whose sprained wrist turned into a medical nightmare, pediatric anesthesiologist Elliot Krane discusses the complex mystery of chronic pain in this TEDTalk presentation. Krane also reviews what we know about how pain works, and current pain...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: Who should have access to our thoughts, and to what degree? This program presents some of the current scientific research on the thought processes of the human brain, with special attention paid to its clinical applications and its ethical implications. German philosophers Thomas Metzinger and John-Dylan Haynes explain neuroethics, or the social, legal, and ethical repercussions of brain...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program looks at nerve signals and how they are transmitted. It looks at the part played by nerve messages in reflex activities and at both the chemical and electrical activities of networks of nerve cells in contact.
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: 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: How does the brain create that internal space called consciousness? In this stimulating program, top names in cognitive science such as Daniel Dennett, Rodney Brooks, Endel Tulving, and John Searle delve into the mechanics of perception and cognition and speculate on the meaning of consciousness. Using advanced technology, they and other experts seek to understand the brain, leading to...
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
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: This program shows how the brain coordinates functions to make a simple but lifesaving decision-how the cortex assesses incoming information, sends outgoing messages to the muscles, and stores "maps" of the world and the body; how circuits of nerve cells operate in the brain; and how individual nerve cells function.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: We often think of memory as a record of facts, but it is also a web of sensations and emotions-and a vehicle for traveling, so to speak, through time. This program explores the mechanisms of human recollection, presenting new case studies and medical findings that reveal the complexity of the brain's memory center. Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Randy Buckner explains his research into memory...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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: 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: The 100 billion cells that make up the brain communicate electrically over 1,000 trillion neural connections at up to 250 miles per hour-and from this sparking of electrical power grows the personality and its behavior. This program explores how personalities are shaped during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, exposing how traits such as extroversion and introversion develop. Additional...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
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: After an introductory segment contrasting the human endocrine and nervous systems, this program addresses the complex physiology of the endocrine system. Topics include the endocrine organs and glands; the characteristics of hormones and the process of signal transduction; hormonal regulation of blood glucose and blood calcium levels; the roles of growth hormone, thyroid hormone, testosterone,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: What is the difference between the mind and the brain? Are they separable? Are they even quantifiable? And where does the soul fit in? In this thought-provoking program, experts including Oxford mathematician Sir Roger Penrose, cognitive scientist Dr. Daniel Dennett, and cyber-age techno-visionary Jaron Lanier contemplate the social and moral impact of brain research and questions such as how...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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: 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: 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