All In The Mind

The pursuit of happiness is a global obsession. But can science investigate its slippery, subjective nature? What are the metrics—self report, brain activity, or the good deeds we do? Five world leaders in the field join Natasha Mitchell in conversation—neuroscientist Richard Davidson, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace, psychologist Daniel Gilbert and philosopher David Chalmers.

Smokers cling to the ciggies for dear life, knowing it will likely be a much shorter one. An anti-smoking drug released in Australia targets nicotine receptors in the brain, working differently to traditional nicotine replacement therapies. But are we too fixed on a quick fix for addiction? And, the challenge of investigating post-marketing reports that the drug may trigger suicidal thoughts and behaviour in some users. Real side effect of the meds, or part of nicotine withdrawal?

Maori people believe the body is derived from the earth, and returns to the ancestral earth at death—complete. The flesh, and all its bits, are sacred. The new Human Tissue Bill in New Zealand has provoked debate over who owns your body at death—you or your family? The Maori Party argues the legislation is Western-centric and racist. And, a young Maori scientist working with post-mortem brain tissue is breaking new ground, to keep her lab life 'culturally safe', in consultation with her tribe.

The incredible saga of Ishi, California's last 'wild' Indian, is the stuff of American folklore. It's also the quest for a lost brain, taken from Ishi's tuberculosis ravaged body at death—only to be rediscovered and repatriated 80 years later. And next week—a young Maori scientist working with post-mortem brain tissue is breaking new ground, to keep her lab life 'culturally safe'.

Front up to your shrink, and you bring a menagerie of hunter gatherers, anteaters and reptiles from your ancestral past with you. Or so Professor Daniel Wilson and Dr Gary Galambos believe. Both clinical psychiatrists, they provocatively challenge their profession to look to the Darwinian roots of human neuroses, and the evolutionary battleground that is our stone-age brain.

Four-year-old Tara has a very special brain. Like Rain Man, she was born without a Corpus Callosum. It's the head's superhighway -- a thick band of nerve fibres connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. Join Natasha Mitchell as she experiences a day in the life of the Ingerson family, with rare insights into one of the most complicated neurological birth defects.

Meet polymath Ian Gibbins -- neuroscientist, anatomist and university professor by day; poet, performer and composer by night. In a unique audio portrait, All in the Mind takes you inside all of his worlds; contemplating cadavers, nerve cells and the creative arts.

Apes are our closest relatives -- nearly 99% of our genes are identical -- but how do our inner lives compare? Culture, empathy, language, learning -- do chimps have the smarts to pull these off? Channel your 'inner ape' with the world's top primatologists as they unearth surprising results.

Four Australians remain on Death Row in prisons offshore. Guilty or innocent -- what does facing your demise by another's hand do to the psyche? This week, extraordinary first hand accounts from men who spent decades incarcerated on Death Row. And, psychologists investigating the state of the confined mind.

BBC Baghdad correspondent Andrew North was struck down with a debilitating illness after reporting on the US invasion in Iraq, paralysed with acute pain as his immune system attacked his nervous system. After reporting on and witnessing the pain of others, he was forced to confront his own. In this series, Andrew investigates the perplexing experience of pain. In Part 2 - the expression and suppression of pain - what works? All in the Mind's podcast this week features The Nature of Consciousness Debate with Paul Davies, Susan Blackmore and David Chalmers.