NOVA

Is what you see real? Join neuroscientist Heather Berlin on a quest to understand how your brain shapes your reality, and why you can’t always trust what you perceive. Learn the surprising tricks and shortcuts the brain takes to help us survive.

Neuroscientists discover the tricks and shortcuts the brain takes to help us survive.

Your Brain: Perception Deception Preview

Remember the infamous debate about “the dress”? Whether you saw it as blue/black or white/gold, it all comes down to the way your brain perceives color. A vision scientist explains.

A vision scientist breaks down the infamous dress debate.

How Your Brain Interprets Color

The two hemispheres of the brain communicate via a bundle of fibers called the corpus callosum. For some people with epilepsy, seizures can quickly spread to the other through this region. But if that bridge is surgically severed, a seizure can no longer cross.

Severing the connection between the two halves of the brain reveals how the hemispheres function.

Is the Human Brain Actually Two Minds?

Your Brain: Perception Deception

Did your memories ever really happen? Turns out, every time you recall a memory, it gets a little more false. Scientists explain why your memories change over time—and why they’re less real than you think.

It turns out memories have a very shaky foundation.

Your Memories Are Not as True as You Think

In your hands, you have separate sensors for heat, cold, and pain. Here's what happens when you touch something hot and cold at the same time.

This experiment shows how the brain can interpret — and misinterpret— pain.

Is Pain Made in the Brain?

the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Carlisle Companies

Viking

NOVA Science Trust Logo

Purple graphic of a brain sketch and neurons.

Is what you see real? Join neuroscientist Heather Berlin on a quest to understand how your brain shapes your reality, and why you can’t always trust what you perceive. In the first hour of this two-part series, learn what the latest research shows about how your brain processes and shapes the world around you, and discover the surprising tricks and shortcuts your brain takes to help you survive. (A two-part series. Part 1 premiered May 17, 2023)

New York University

Barrow Neurological Institute

Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Neuroscientists discover the tricks and shortcuts the brain takes to help us survive.

Body & Brain

Are you in control of your brain, or is your brain controlling you? Dive into the latest research on the subconscious with neuroscientist Heather Berlin to see what’s really driving the decisions you make.

Dive into the subconscious to see what’s really driving the decisions you make.

Your Brain: Who's in Control?

Certain experiences are so profound that they can impact brain biology from one generation to the next.

Your ancestors' experiences might influence how your brain is wired today.

How Trauma Can Alter Your Biology

Neuroscientist and clinical psychologist Heather Berlin visits a sleep center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to learn what’s going on in the brain when someone sleepwalks.

Some people can do complex behaviors like walking and driving while sleeping.

What Happens in the Brain When you Sleepwalk?

A region located inside the prefrontal cortex processes our emotions and helps regulate our behavior. What would happen if it were gone?

An injury cost Phineas Gage part of his brain, but he lost something else too.

What If Part of Your Brain Was Missing?

Your Brain: Who's in Control? Preview

Green graphic of a brain sketch and neurons.

Are you in control, or is your brain controlling you? Dive into the latest research on the subconscious with neuroscientist Heather Berlin. Sleepwalking, anesthesia, game theory, and more reveal surprising insights in this eye-opening journey to discover what’s really driving the decisions you make. (Episode 2 of a two-part series, premiered May 24, 2023)

Dive into the subconscious to see what’s really driving the decisions you make.

Blue graphic of a brain sketch and neurons.

How does your brain create your reality? Are you in control, or is your brain controlling you? Discover the surprising answers based on the latest research in this eye-opening journey into the human brain with neuroscientist Heather Berlin. Your brain – for centuries a black box – is slowly giving up its secrets to modern neuroscience, shedding light on big questions that go to the very heart of who you are. (A two-part series premiering May 17, 2023 at 9 pm)

Is what you see real? Does your mind control you? Discover how your brain really works.

Is what you see real? Does your mind control you? Discover how your brain really works.

Explore Your Brain

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This Is Your Brain and Body on Power

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Your Brain: Who's in Control?

Your Brain: Perception Deception

The Supercomputer That Could Map the Human Brain

Using artificial intelligence, scientists translate brain signals into speech

Can You Upload Your Brain?

Physics Is Erasing Your Memory

How Your Brain Interprets Color

Your Memories Are Not as True as You Think

How Trauma Can Alter Your Biology

What Happens in the Brain When you Sleepwalk?

What If Part of Your Brain Was Missing?