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Secrets of the Mind
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Program Overview
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Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, a world leader in brain science, explores four patients with
unusual delusional symptoms
and shows how their cases have implications for the way in which all humans understand their world.
The program:
relates that Ramachandran's work has revealed clues about how
certain brain structures control fundamental thought processes.
describes the doctor's work with patients in whom the brain's
parietal lobes—which control
spatial understanding and visual recognition—have been damaged through injury or stroke.
profiles Ramachandran's patients: One man who has lost an arm in
a motorcycle accident continues
to feel phantom sensations in
his missing limb; a female stroke
victim who has a problem in
sensing any activity on one side
of her field of view; a young man with a head injury who believes his parents are impostors; and another young man with temporal lobe epilepsy who has seizures and hallucinations that produce profound spiritual feelings.
concludes with questions
about whether human brains
are hard-wired for certain types
of thoughts.
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