Holiday Inside Your Head

Saturday 30 May 2009

Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. Through it in particular, we think, see, hear, distinguish the ugly from the beautiful, the bad from the good, and the pleasant from the unpleasant.  Hippocrates, 500BC

If you are used to leaving your mind behind when you go holiday, think again. Scientists Mark Lythgoe and Ashish Ranpura lead this extraordinary journey deep into the physical spaces of consciousness. Using the latest medical imaging techniques and psychological tests, they’ll guide you around the parts of the brain responsible for thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, dreams, and self-awareness.

You’ll visit leading laboratories and hear stories from the front-line of neurological research. You’ll test your own capacities for intuition, improvisation, creativity and memory, while seeing first-hand how scientists study such nebulous phenomena. You’ll explore complex questions of identity and cognition, and even get to handle a physical replica of Einstein’s brain.

An astonishing excursion into territories both familiar and foreign, you’ll go home at the end of this mind-expanding day, look in the mirror and see your head in a wholly different way. 

Mark Lythgoe is Director of the Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging at University College London (UCL) and Co-Director of the Cheltenham Science Festival. He regularly appears on television and radio.  Ashish Ranpura works on memory at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL and is also a science journalist and popular communicator.