Dana Radio Series - Gray Matters

Nobel laureate and Dana Alliance member Gerald Edelman and Susan Sgorbati, an improvisational dance teacher at Bennington College, explore what happens in the brain when dancers create patterns of movement. The dancer, working with Sgorbati, is Katie Martin and the percussionist is Jake Maginsky. This program was aired on KPBS in November. Marjorie Sun of KPBS filed the report.

This production highlights three turning points in brain science: 1848 Phineas Gage, survives a construction accident that drives a tamping iron through his skull; 1953 Patient "H.M." undergoes surgery to relieve epilepsy with most unexpected results; 1982 Young drug addicts display mysterious symptoms: those of advanced Parkinson's disease. Continuing research continues to advance cutting-edge studies in frontal lobe damage, memory and Parkinson's disease.

Education doesn't begin the day you're dropped off at kindergarten; nor does it end when they hand you a diploma. Life is filled with opportunities for learning. This program explores new brain research across the life span.

An internal biological clock is fundamental to all living things. It regulates the daily patterns or rhythms of our lives, when we sleep, when we wake, when we feel at our best and at our worst. This program gives an overview of the structures in the brain that regulate body clocks, discusses what happens when body clocks go wrong and introduces the field of chronobiology revealing why taking medicine should coincide with the body's rhythms and the health implications of interfering with those rhythms.

Brain imaging is helping scientists map the complex circuitry of the brain, pathways leading to people's deepest despair, brightest potential and darkest addictions. The researchers are among the world's pioneer brain scientists, studying the images for clues about how the brain functions and what to do when it malfunctions. Their experiments offer hope for patients with Alzheimer's disease, stroke, treatment-resistant depression, alcoholism and seizure disorders, to name a few.

Physicians and researchers specializing in stroke have adopted the term "brain attack" to convey the message that stroke is a medical emergency that needs to be viewed and treated with the same urgency as a heart attack. Researchers are optimistic that we are on the threshold of having the first true interventional agents for acute stroke treatment and hospitals across the country are developing stroke teams to prepare for the coming therapeutic challenge. Featuring Maya Angelou and Ray Bradbury.

Brain researchers are finding physiological evidence for something that parents of adolescence have long suspected- teenagers just do not think or feel the same way that adults do. Research now shows that the disparities are due, in part, to the fact that teenage brains actually work differently from those of adults. Hosted by Natalie Portman.

Like the body's muscles, the brain physically adapts itself to exercise. Research can now point to a myriad of links between peak physical performance and profound changes in the brain. ABC sports commentator Frank Gifford hosts.

An intensely dramatic program that takes listeners inside the human brain - where several times a day some of the leading neurosurgeons in the country perform minor miracles. It is also a tour of some of the most promising innovations happening on the operating table; breakthroughs that include surgery for Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, tumors, stroke and complex spinal surgery.

Research holds exciting prospects for the treatment of neurological disease, but our increasing ability to manipulate the brain will pose grave questions for both scientists and society at large. This program explores where we draw the line on manipulating brain function. Neuroethics, a new field of ethical study, examines the human and social implications that accompany contemporary brain research.

How is music perceived by the brain and which cells and circuits come into play? How does music influence a child's developing brain? Are musicians' brains wired differently from those of other people? Neuroscientists around the world have begun to explore the neural underpinnings of music. Any kind of music, whether it's being played or just listened to, is able to shape the structure and function of the brain. Mandy Patinkin hosts.

We spend a third of our lives sleeping. Research now shows that the sleeping brain is as active as the working brain and perhaps more. Explore the value of healthy sleep, which some say is more important to general health than diet, exercise or heredity. Hear new findings about sleep deprivation, the dreaming brain and changes in sleep patterns throughout life.

Stress may actually damage the brain's structure and chemistry. This program highlights new research that makes clear how inextricably entwined stress, the brain and the body are. Veteran newscaster and journalist Robert MacNeil hosts.

Features the latest research into emotional expression in the biology of the brain - and its repercussions for the body. New studies are leading scientists to consider that the brain is organized into multiple emotional processing systems, a complex web of connections that handles each emotion separately.

Brain science and immunology interact in preventing, fighting and in some cases causing disease. A new field, neuroimmunology, has emerged that integrates these two disciplines. This program reviews breakthroughs in the interactions between the nervous system and the immune system. Advances in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis are featured - as well as hopes of truly revolutionary developments such as an Alzheimer's vaccine.