The Brain with David Eagleman

The Stroop test allows you to feel the pull of rival networks competing with each other as you try to name a color.

Explore how the brain navigates the myriad of conscious and unconscious decisions we make daily.

Explore the great deception that greets us each morning when we awake: it feels as though we are in conscious control of our lives but the truth is that we are not.

Why are there differences between us? Why is it that we behave differently when faced with the same choices? A confluence of our genes and the environment we are born into send each of us off on very different life trajectories.

David describes some situations where the unconscious brain is making decisions on our behalf. So why are we conscious? David enlists the help of a man dressed as a bee to point out one of its important roles.

Ian Waterman has lost the ability to control his body without exerting extraordinary conscious effort. Ian’s condition reminds us of the amazing reach of the unconscious brain.

What if we have no free will? What if we are just systems that move from one state to another in a predictable fashion? Using a tank of ping pong balls, David demonstrates why we don’t need to worry.

In this experiment men were asked to look at photographs of women’s faces and make judgments about them. They had no conscious awareness of what was influencing their answers.

Austin Naber is a world-record holder in cup stacking. He practices 3-4 hours every day. How will David fare against him? EEG helmets capture the differences in their brain activity, and reveal a deeper truth about why so much of what the brain does is unconscious.

The brains of London taxi drivers were tracked before, during and after their training, and results showed that a part of their brain had grown. The adult brain isn’t fixed. Its networks can reconfigure themselves according to our experiences and our environment.

Henry Molaison couldn't form new memories. His case reveals something important about the brain’s ability to think into the future. Both the past, and the future are constructions of the same networks in the brain.

A study of nuns’ brains produces an unexpected revelation. A third of the brains tested at autopsy showed signs of Alzheimer’s but cognitive tests had revealed that the brain owners had shown no symptoms of this terrible disease. What was going on?