Doctors' Notes: Joy
What's Up Docs?
BBC
4.4 • 659 Ratings
🗓️ 30 December 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
Chris and Xand continue their conversation with Professor Sophie Scott, CBE. Together, they explore the neuroscience behind joy: what happens in the brain when joy strikes, how spontaneous joy differs from the joy of achievement, and whether joy serves an evolutionary purpose. They also ask whether joy can be cultivated, and what a healthy relationship with joy might look like in the long term.
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Presenters: Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken Guest: Professor Sophie Scott Producer: Maia Miller-Lewis Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar Editor: Jo Rowntree Researcher: Grace Revill Tech Lead: Reuben Huxtable Social Media: Leon Gower Digital Lead: Richard Berry Composer: Phoebe McFarlane Sound Design: Melvin Rickarby
At the BBC: Assistant Commissioner: Greg Smith Commissioning Editor: Rhian Roberts
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.
Transcript
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| 0:39.9 | Hello and welcome to Doctor's Notes. |
| 0:41.9 | I'm Dr. Chris Van Tiliken and as ever I am actually not joined by my identical twin brother, Dr. Zahn. |
| 0:48.5 | If you listen to the main episode on Joy, you will know that he got a phone call from his wife who was feeling what she |
| 0:55.9 | thinks may be the first contractions of labour. So he has abandoned me to do the rest of the |
| 1:02.4 | main episode and to do doctor's notes with our expert. Sophie Scott CBE. Sophie was happy to |
| 1:09.1 | stay and do a deeper dive into the subject of joy. She's a professor of |
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