Past Programs
Arts and Culture - 2005
2009 | 2008 | 2006 | 2005 | 2002
Grandad is an artist! Dementia and the creative mind.
12/11/2005
Dementia is commonly regarded as a cruel and relentlessly progressive disorder -where, over time, a person is stripped of their unique skills and identity. But recently clinicians have noted not only deficits in dementia patients, but that other cognitive skills remain intact - and can even become accentuated. Remarkably a number of patients with dementia develop new artistic abilities. According to neurologist Bruce Miller, from the Memory and Aging Centre in California, the maintenance and even growth of artistic skills in dementia patients offers insight into creativity and brain plasticity. Bruce and Professor John Hodges, from the University of Cambridge, consider what we know about dementia and its impact on personality and ability.
The Imaginative Child
21/05/2005
The joy of playing with a pre-school child is the joy of make-believe. A teacup becomes a telephone; a rocking horse morphs into a dragon; the table and chairs construct a castle. 'How?' 'Why?' and 'What?' are the child's most frequent questions and their imagination is often the place where they find the answers. But does the young imagination play a more substantial role in a child's cognitive development? Does it give us tools for real world analysis well into adulthood? On All in the Mind this week Gretchen Miller explores the power of imaginative little minds.
The Marco Polo of Neuroscience: V.S Ramachandran
07/05/2005
He's had patients with absent limbs that ache, others convinced that they are dead or that their parents are imposters, and yet others who vividly sense numbers as colours or flavours. Now he's turned his attention to perhaps the wiliest question of all: What is Art? Acclaimed neuroscientist Professor V.S Ramachandran is celebrated as one of the most creative and colourful communicators about the brain and its discontents. Author of the Phantoms in the Brain, and now, A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, the passionate Rama joins Natasha Mitchell this week.
The Dancing Mind
19/03/2005
This week, limber up and join Natasha Mitchell for an exploration of the dancing mind. Dance is one of the few art forms that we make out of our own bodies, and a potent form of communication without language. It's been said that dancers use their bodies to 'think' with. So where is the mind in dance? And what's happening in the brains of an audience? Scientists, dancers and choreographers are coming together in novel ways to explore the cognitive microcosm that is this long-loved performing art.
