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Program 1
"The Baby's Brain: Wider than the Sky" examines
how the brain builds itself from conception
through the first year of life. The mystery begins
in the womb -- only four weeks into gestation the
first brain cells, the neurons, are already forming
at an astonishing rate: 500,000 every minute.
Billions of brain cells will forge links with billions
of other brain cells and eventually there will be
trillions and trillions of connections between cells,
pulsing with electricity. Eventually, every cell will
find its place; every link between cells will be
carefully organized. How does it get this way?
Neurobiologists Susan McConnell and Carla Shatz
are working to find out by studying the intricate
relationship between genes and the environment
on development.
What happens if this carefully orchestrated
process is interrupted? How vulnerable is the
brain to an altered environment? Ten-day-old
Elizabeth, born almost three months premature,
is part of a study by developmental psychologist
Heidelise Als. Als wants to know if the difficulties
preemies have paying attention and learning later
in life can be overcome by providing a special
environment which mimics the womb. Will MRI
images reveal that Elizabeth's brain has developed
differently than other premature babies treated in
the standard way?
Program 2
"The Child's Brain: Syllable from Sound" traces
normal development from the toddler through
puberty. During childhood, the brain is a magnificent
engine for learning, and nowhere is learning
more dramatic than in the way a child learns language.
Most children learn to speak as easily as a
bird learns to sing, but Michael B. did not. At five,
by the time most children have mastered grammar,
Michael has trouble speaking in complete
sentences. How is his brain different from other
children his age? What can Michael teach us
about the brain's capacity for language? How
does the brain make this great leap that is nothing
short of a miracle?
In nearly all adults, the language center of the
brain resides in the left hemisphere, but in children
the brain is less specialized. Neuroscientists
Helen Neville and Debbie Mills have demonstrated
that until babies reach about a year old, they
respond to language with their entire brains, but
then, gradually, language shifts to the left hemisphere,
driven by the acquisition of language
itself.
If the left hemisphere becomes the language center
for most adults, what happens if, during childhood,
it is compromised by disease? At three,
Michael R.began having brain seizures; by the
time he was seven, he was having hundreds a
day. Doctors diagnosed a rare brain disease for
which the cure was radical: the left hemisphere of
his brain would have to be surgically removed.
Today, Michael bowls better than most children
and races stock cars. Although he speaks with
some difficulty, he understands well, even though
the left side of his brain is missing. Dana
Boatman, at Johns Hopkins University, has been
testing Michael ever since his operation. She
wants to know how the right side of his brain has
compensated.
For most of us, while speaking is as natural and
inevitable as walking, reading is more like a high
wire balancing act, a performance by the brain
that demands the most sophisticated coordination
of many of its parts. But reading is a gift that not
everyone receives. Millions, like seven year old
Russell, are dyslexic, painfully unable to translate
the squiggles on the page into sound and meaning,
in spite of capable minds. At Georgetown
University, Guinivere Eden is scanning the brains
of dyslexic children to understand how their
brains are different.
Program 3
"The Teenage Brain: A World of Their Own"
explores how the normal brain matures during the
teenage years. New research has shown that
during puberty, just as the brain begins teeming
with hormones, the prefrontal cortex, the center
of reasoning and impulse control, is still a work in
progress. For the first time, scientists can offer an
explanation for what parents already know ñ
adolescence is a time of roiling emotions and poor
judgment. As the brain matures, teenagers also
face special risks ñ from addictive drugs and
alcohol that can hijack the brain to the chaos of
schizophrenia that strikes most often during adolescence.
Eighteen-year-old Courtney was a star student in
high school when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia
which crippled his ability to think, reason
and feel. Dr. Nancy Andreasen at the University of
Iowa is studying Courtney and other schizophrenics,
searching to find which areas of the brain are
affected and how to treat the debilitating symptoms.
Courtney responds to new medications that
do not cure the disease but allow him to function
on a daily basis. Other teenagers, however,
have a more resistant form of the disease.
Fourteen-year-old Sabrina experienced her first
psychotic break at age twelve and has been
unable to find a medication that will control her
psychotic symptoms.
Eighteen-year-old Jessie is struggling with a brain
disorder of another kind, a self-inflicted disorder
that can easily destroy a young life ñ drug addiction.
She and other teenagers at the Caron
Foundation, a treatment program in Eastern
Pennsylvania, fight to beat their addictions while
learning how drugs and alcohol have disrupted
their brain chemistry to hijack behavior and desire.
Dr. Anna Rose Childress at the University of
Pennsylvania has identified where craving occurs
in the brain and is now testing new medications
that may control it.
Program 4
"The Adult Brain: To Think By Feeling" explores
the critical interplay between reason and emotion
and what happens when the balance between
these two brain regions goes awry.
Marvin is an example of how emotion is intertwined
with reason, and how damage to one influences
the other. Marvin suffered a stroke that
damaged a portion of his brain that cut him off
from his ability to become aware of what he is
feeling. Today, he is a changed man: he has lost
the ability to connect with other people, even his
wife and children, and has difficulty making even
simple, everyday decisions.
Marvin feels too little. Johny feels too much. He
suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), constantly reliving a car accident that happened
a year ago. Day and night, memories of the
accident send him into a panic, his heart racing.
Fear is a normal, necessary emotion that protects
us from danger, but in PTSD, fear and panic race
out of control. Roger Pitman at Harvard is studying
a drug that, if administered in time, might be
able to prevent PTSD in victims of trauma.
For writer and psychologist Lauren Slater, an
extreme sensitivity to anxiety and the stress it
produces may help explain her life-long battle with
depression. Lauren is part of a family line ìriddled
with mental illness.î Added to that genetic
predisposition was the abuse she suffered as a
child. Charles Nemeroff at Emory University has
shown that childhood abuse may actually alter the
brain's ability to experience stress normally and
may be a cause of depression later in life. There is
no cure for depression, but scientists have developed
effective medications that, especially in
combination with talk therapy, can help people
with depression live productive lives. Treated for
depression twelve years ago, Lauren is now married
and has a two-year-old daughter. She has
drawn from her experiences as a patient and psychologist
to write three highly acclaimed books.
At a public health clinic in Boston, she counsels
patients, using her own experience to help others
suffering from depression.
Program 5
"The Aging Brain: Through Many Lives." At the
age of 95, Stanley Kunitz was named poet laureate
of the United States. Still writing new poems,
still reading to live audiences, he stands as an
inspiring example of the brain's ability to stay vital
in the final years of our lives. The fifth hour of
THE SECRET LIFE OF THE BRAIN draws on the
latest discoveries of neuroscience to present a
new view of how the brain ages.
The longstanding belief that we lose vast numbers
of brain cells as we grow older turns out to
be wrong. The normal aging process leaves most
mental functions intact, and may even provide the
brain with unique advantages that form the basis
for wisdom. The aging brain is also far more
resilient than was previously believed. At the
University of Alabama at Birmingham, neuroscientist
Edward Taub has developed an innovative
form of therapy that helps stroke patients like
Kent overcome years of paralysis by reviving the
damaged circuits in their brains.
Overturning decades of dogma, scientists recently
discovered that even into our seventies, our
brains continue producing new neurons. Might it
one day be possible to use these new neurons to
replace those killed by disorders of the aging
brain, like Parkinson's Disease? At Harvard
Medical School, neurologist Jeffrey Macklis is trying
to find out by trying to decipher the chemical
signals that cause new neurons to be born.
In St. Louis, 69-year-old Chuck has just been told
he has Alzheimer's Disease, which slowly
destroys the brain's ability to remember and to
think. But Chuck is not without hope because
neuroscientists have made enormous progress in
identifying the likely causes of the disease: microscopic
molecules that can be lethal to the brain's
neurons. In California, scientist Dale Schenk has
just developed an experimental vaccine that may
help the brain to defend itself. After decades of
frustration, scientists believe they are finally closing
in on the first effective treatments for this
devastating disorder that afflicts millions of
Americans.
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