This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg

For 17 years, the Unabomber skillfully eluded investigators, leaving behind no fingerprints, DNA, or usable forensic evidence but in the end it was his own words that gave him away. 

Dr. Phil Stieg speaks with retired FBI criminal profiler James Fitzgerald, a pioneer of forensic linguistics whose analysis of Ted Kaczy...

Can't remember the fourth item on your grocery list? Nelson Dellis, a professional "memory athlete," can remember 100 things or more (though he still may forget the butter).

Hear how Dellis learned to memorize lists so long that he became a five-time USA Memory Champion, and how you can use some of his strategies to improve your own memory.

Dellis explains how he uses tricks like the "memory palace" and mnemonic devices to recall l...

The human brain resists uncertainty — whether it's an approaching tiger or a global pandemic, we've evolved to move from fear and chaos to order and resolution.

Dr. Beau Lotto, founder of the Lab of Misfits, explains why the brain takes small steps instead of large leaps, and why we need to teach kids to think more like scientists.

Plus... why we react to a pandem...

What is awe? It's not wonder, or surprise, or pleasure — it's a state of mind that Dr. Beau Lotto calls "finding the impossible in the common." 

Dr. Lotto is a neuroscientist who specializes in perception; he once actually measured awe in the brains of people watching Cirque du Soleil. Learn where awe originates, why it evolved, and even how military leaders might weaponize it.

Candace Pert discovered the opioid receptor, created a drug to stop AIDS in the brain, and identified stress as a cause of disease. She also inadvertently unleashed the overdose epidemic, got kicked out of the NIH, and was denied credit for much of her work.

Largely forgotten, Pert...

New parents - especially moms - experience profound changes in the brain when they are expecting and welcoming a new baby. Health journalist Chelsea Conaboy explains how the caricature of "mommy brain" and its cognitive fog has it all wrong - parenthood actually has a neuroprotective effect, as the brain adapts to meeting the needs of children. It happens to all parents, not just mothers, but it's most dramatic...

Where in the brain is that little something that makes top performers feel so confident in their ability? Can that confidence be developed in someone who is naturally more timid? Dr. Nate Zinsser, director of West Point's Performance Psychology Program and author of The Confident Mind, explains how a sense of mastery develops, and why butterflies in your stomach are a signal from the brain when you're about to do something gre...

We all do it - put things off, tell ourselves we'll start tomorrow, and somehow still miss the deadline. But chronic procrastination isn't just a bad habit; it's self-sabotaging behavior that can derail our goals, relationships, and even our health.

Psychologist Dr. Joseph...

Nancy Jarecki's stroke could have reduced her to a statistic. But her determination, humor and style paved a different path to recovery.

For our Season Six Finale we are recognizing ...

Most of us have a bad hair day or we're not happy if we have a little pimple on our face. But that's quite different from the experience of people with body dysmorphic disorder. (BDD)

More than simple insecurity about one's appearance, BDD is a disorder in which...

Imagine a world where everyone looks the same and you can't recognize one person from another – even you own child! It sounds like a frightening episode from the "Twilight Zone", but it's just every day life for people with prosopagnosia, better known as "Face Blindness".  

We humans use parts of our brains to see, process and recognize faces that are different from recognizing anything else in our lives, which is not su...

Why do we sometimes drink too much, even when we know the risks? In this episode, surgeon, author, and recovering alcoholic Dr. Charles Knowles joins us to explore the neuroscience of alcohol use and addiction. Drawing from his book "Why We Drink Too Much" and his own lived experience, Dr. Knowles describes how alcohol alters the brain's reward pathways, and how drinking problems exist on a spectrum. Through neuroscience and d...

Although memories fade, hearing declines and our bodies suffer aches and pains, there is one benefit to aging that we can actually gain with each passing year.

It's called wisdom.

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