All In The Mind - Abc Radio National

The placebo effect demonstrates that the mind-body interaction can be powerful. Placebos can turn on the body’s natural biological processes to relieve a range of conditions, and in the future deception may not even be necessary.

How far would you go to reveal your true, super-smart inner self? Athletes have used substances and techniques to enhance their performance physically. Now there are ways to boost your intelligence—which we don’t suggest you try it at home. But David Adam did—to try and cheat his way into Mensa using smart pills and brain hacks. But this also brought moral dilemmas.

Neurodiversity is a radical social movement challenging the notion of what’s normal and what’s a disorder. What better place to explore neurodiversity than in the arts and theatre—we hear from actors on the autism spectrum and a synesthete using her perceptions of colour and music to create art.

Some exciting news has just been published in the Psychiatric Journal JAMA about the potential mental health benefits of psychedelic drug research. It’s likely that within the next 5 years researchers will know whether the psychoactive drug commonly known as ecstasy—methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA—can be used to treat psychiatric disorders.

Trauma has a deep impact on the lives of survivors. It’s associated with mental and physical health problems, including substance abuse, and neuroscience is showing that a traumatic memory is quite different from a normal memory. Mental health services now realise that early trauma must be taken into account as an essential part of recovery from mental distress.

Do you never forget a face? You might be pretty good—but are you a super-recogniser? Research is trying to identify our face recognition abilities, and how we compare to those of a computer algorithm.

If something goes wrong with the brain we often assume that things can’t change much—especially with extreme conditions. But neuroplasticity, and the almost limitless capacity of the brain to remould itself, is beginning to turn that assumption on its head.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a mental illness which causes deep pain and tumultuous relationships. But there is good therapy.

Borderline Personality Disorder is the cause of deep pain—yet it is steeped in stigma and often not thought of as a legitimate disorder. But with good treatment it’s possible to live a normal and full life.