Gray Matters Brain Podcast

Seven years ago, when he was 19, Ian Burkhart was left paraplegic after a diving accident. For most patients, this would mean life without the possibility of ever again moving their legs, their arms, or their hands. But for Ian, his injury wasn’t the end of the road, but the beginning, thanks to a lab at The Ohio State University. By outfitting him with a special electrical sleeve, researchers were able to bypass the damaged neural pathways and connect Ian’s brain directly to his muscles. We speak to Ian and to his partner in research, Dr. Marcia Bockbrader, an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at The Ohio State University, about what their findings mean for Ian and for others like him.

As anyone who has ever had a drink knows, alcohol has an immediate impact on the brain. But what do we know about how much is too much, and the surprising connection between alcohol consumption and traumatic brain injury? For the latest findings, we speak with Dr. John Corrigan, professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and director of the Ohio Valley Center for Brain Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation, and with Dr. Zach Weil, an assistant professor at The Ohio State University in the Department of Neuroscience.

Dr. William Kraemer is a professor of Human Sciences at The Ohio State University and an expert on measuring and maximizing performance for athletes and the rest of us. He shows us how to take our bodies and brains to our natural limit. We also speak with Dr. Jeff Volek, a registered dietitian, and professor in the Department of Human Sciences at The Ohio State University, about a potential nutritional revolution that runs counter to virtually everything we’ve been taught about how we should eat for both health and athletic performance. Tune in to tap into the power of the human brain.

“Mindfulness” is everywhere, and is seemingly a cure all for stress, unhappiness, and whatever else ails us. But what do we really know about mindfulness, meditation and the impact it can have on the brain and in our lives? We speak with Dr. Ruchika Prakash, an associate professor of psychology at The Ohio State University and the director of Ohio State's clinical neuroscience laboratory, about how her lab is bringing methodological scientific rigor to the study of mindfulness.

Our closest relationships can ease stress – or, if they’re not functioning well, dramatically increase it. Today we’re talking how relationship stress impacts our well-being with Dr. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, one of the nation’s foremost experts in this area. She’s a professor of psychiatry and psychology at The Ohio State University and is the Director of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Tune in to learn about stress symptoms and stress management.

How much should we be sleeping, and what happens to our brains and our bodies when we don’t get enough sleep? We speak to Dr. Ulysses Magalang, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, and a professor of Internal Medicine and Neuroscience. And we take a tour of his sleep center with Dani Livelsberger, who’s run it for well over a decade.

In this introduction to Gray Matters: How the Latest Brain Research Can Make Us Smarter, Healthier, and Happier, we speak Dr. Per Sederberg, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, about what we do and don’t know about the brain.