Neuroscience in the 20th century

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 1998

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests marvel at our brains and discuss how at the end of a century of research we still understand so little about how they work.Developments in the understanding of the brain represent one of the major leaps forward in science in the 20th century, and the research is gathering pace and intensity. It’s a subject which captures the imagination, particularly the search for consciousness whatever that might be, and brings together some of the newest technology and the oldest belief systems. What a piece of work is the brain - a grain-of-sand-sized piece contains one hundred thousand neurons, two-million axons and one billion synapses which all talk to each other. How far we have got with our understanding of the brain and what can it tell us about ourselves and the world we live in?With Professor Susan Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution, Professor of Pharmacology, Oxford University and Professor of Physics at Gresham College; Professor Vilayanur Ramachandran, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology, Director of the Brain Perception Laboratory, University of California in San Diego and Professor at the Salk Institute.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use
0:05.4	Please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for. I hope you enjoy the program
0:11.9	Hello, we'll be talking about the brain and the latest work on that most fascinating of subjects
0:16.3	Which is also an incredible object. I'm joined by Professor Susan Greenfield who's the current director of the Royal Institution
0:22.3	The first woman to have held the post. She's also Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University and Professor of Physics at Gresham College
0:29.0	She's written several books including The Human Brain a Guided Tour and Professor Ramish Andrin, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology and Director of the Brain
0:37.3	Perception Laboratory of the University of California in San Diego and a professor at the Salk Institute
0:42.6	His new book is called Phantoms in the Brain, Human Nature and the Architecture of the Mind
0:48.0	The Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick said of this book if you're at all interested in how your brain works
0:53.2	Then this is the book you must read. I'll begin by quoting from the Preface of that book
0:57.9	quote the famous saying may you live in interesting times as a special meaning now for those of us who study the brain and human behavior
1:04.9	on the one hand
1:06.4	Despite 200 years of research the most basic questions about the human mind
1:10.8	How do we recognize faces why do we cry why do we laugh why do we dream and why do we enjoy music and art remain unanswered
1:17.9	As does the really big question what is consciousness on the other hand the advent of novel experimental approaches and imaging techniques
1:24.6	Is sure to transform our understanding of the human brain
1:28.5	Looking at one way so's after 200 years and all your work and that
1:32.5	Why don't we know a few of these things?
1:34.5	I think one of the problems is that we're getting a bit carried away with the techniques and not really
1:39.1	asking what we're going to use the techniques for and I think I'll give you three examples one is
1:43.6	Imaging where we can have windows on to the living human brain now by
1:48.0	Exploiting the fact that it's very greedy and that will show you different parts of the brain
	...

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