Instant Expert - How Your Brain Works

The brain has long been a source of fascination. In 1819, the radical thinker and surgeon William Lawrence put it like this: "It is strongly suspected that a Newton or Shakespeare excels other mortals only by having an extra inch of brain in the right place."

Today, many such suspicions are certainties. We understand the structures of the brain, minor and major, and their roles in making us who we are. We can record electrical signals from individual brain cells or networks of them. Imaging technology lets us see both snapshots of the brain and also videos of it in action. We can follow connections within the brain and watch them reform after an injury.

This event will introduce you to the evolution and anatomy of the brain. We will view it through traits such as: memory, emotions, sleep, sensing and perception. We'll also investigate techniques for controlling the brain using electric and magnetic fields, as well as the latest technologies that allow you to control the outside world using your mind alone.

Join speakers:

Morten Kringelbach
Associate professor and senior research fellow at the University of Oxford and professor of neuroscience at Aarhus University, Denmark

Mary Morrell
Professor of sleep and respiratory physiology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London

Andrew Jackson
Wellcome Trust senior research fellow at the Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University.

Peggy St Jacques
Lecturer in psychology and memory researcher at the University of Sussex

Cathy Price
Professor of cognitive neuroscience and director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London

George Mather
Professor of vision science at the University of Lincoln and director of research in the College of Social Sciences

Hosted by Claudia Hammond
Lecturer in health and social psychology at Boston University's London base and presenter of BBC Radio 4's All in the Mind