All In The Mind

Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman rarely gives interviews. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1972 for his work on antibodies, but at 81 he's a true Renaissance man of the brain, heading up what he describes as a 'scientific monastery' in San Diego. He joins Natasha Mitchell to talk consciousness, creativity and 'neural Darwinism'.

You've heard the common refrain, 'Oh, I'm so bad at maths!' But for up to eight per cent of us, a condition called dyscalculia means numbers are a serious struggle, with serious consequences. Scientists are now revealing its biological basis, and in Australia there's a push for it to be seen as a legitimate and unique disability.

Acclaimed neuroscientist Fred Gage is a serial trailblazer. Decades of dogma were overturned when his team confirmed the adult brain continues to make new brain cells. Incredibly, now scientists can even turn skin cells into brain cells with a chemical push! But, if their potential to treat brain diseases or damage is to be realised, transplanted cells need to be able to call your brain home. Stanford biologist James Weimann has a major advance.

Top clinical psychologist and psychiatry professor Kay Redfield Jamison took the world by storm with her book An Unquiet Mind. In it she revealed her own torrid experience of bipolar disorder, and a passionate life marred by mania and depression. She joins Natasha Mitchell in conversation to discuss her new memoir, Nothing Was the Same. Recounting two decades with her partner, leading schizophrenia researcher Richard Wyatt, who died in 2002, it's a story of deep love and deep loss. To her, grief and depression differ in profound ways.

Eminent psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist offers an ambitious, provocative thesis about how the brain's two hemispheres came to be, and construct the world. Today there's a power struggle being played out between the left and right brain that he argues is reshaping Western civilisation in disturbing ways.

A little tension keeps us on our toes - we're biologically primed for it. But 'toxic' stress makes us physically sick, and powerful research is now revealing its potent impact on our developing bodies and brains. Don't miss two world leaders transforming our understanding.

The Cove took out this year's Oscar for best documentary for its confronting coverage of the annual dolphin culls in Taiji, Japan. Scientists argue dolphins have complex, large brains - second only to human brains relative to body weight. Join Natasha Mitchell with leading cetacean scientists and an ethicist for a tour of a waterborne 'alien intelligence'. What are the consequences for captivity, and a controversial call for 'personhood' status?

You've seen it in suburban Australian gardens with its bright, pendulous flowers in full bloom. But in Colombia, Angel's Trumpet has a dark side. It's used to rob people by robbing them of their memory, and allegedly, their free will. For All in the Mind, clinical psychologist Dr Vaughan Bell goes in search of the truth about the drug Burundanga, and Brugmansia, a popular plant with a complex personality.

David Webb's powerful account of suicidal feelings, and call for a more open and nuanced public conversation about suicide, has sparked rich discussion among listeners. This week, an Australian suicide prevention leader reflects thoughtfully on the issues raised. Be part of the conversation.

David Webb has penned what's described as 'the world's first PhD on suicide by someone who has attempted it'. He suggests we need to honour suicidal feelings as real, legitimate, important and 'a sacred part of the human story'. But how does this view sit with health campaigns urging us to understand suicidal thoughts as a sign of untreated mental illness? An opportunity to hear a voice absent from the public conversation about suicide - that of an attempt survivor - and, next week, reflections from a suicide prevention leader.