TED Talks
Steve Silberman: The forgotten history of autism
Decades ago, few pediatricians had heard of autism. In 1975, 1 in 5,000 kids was estimated to have it. Today, 1 in 68 is on the autism spectrum. What caused this steep rise? Steve Silberman points to “a perfect storm of autism awareness”...
TED Talks
Siddharthan Chandran: Can the damaged brain repair itself?
After a traumatic brain injury, it sometimes happens that the brain can repair itself, building new brain cells to replace damaged ones. But the repair doesn't happen quickly enough to allow recovery from degenerative conditions like...
TED Talks
Sabine Doebel: How your brain's executive function works -- and how to improve it
You use your brain's executive function every day -- it's how you do things like pay attention, plan ahead and control impulses. Can you improve it to change for the better? With highlights from her research on child development,...
TED Talks
TED: Don't fear superintelligent AI | Grady Booch
New tech spawns new anxieties, says scientist and philosopher Grady Booch, but we don't need to be afraid an all-powerful, unfeeling AI. Booch allays our worst (sci-fi induced) fears about superintelligent computers by explaining how...
TED Talks
TED: When technology can read minds, how will we protect our privacy? | Nita Farahany
Tech that can decode your brain activity and reveal what you're thinking and feeling is on the horizon, says legal scholar and ethicist Nita Farahany. What will it mean for our already violated sense of privacy? In a cautionary talk,...
TED Talks
TED: Why some people are more altruistic than others | Abigail Marsh
Why do some people do selfless things, helping other people even at risk to their own well-being? Psychology researcher Abigail Marsh studies the motivations of people who do extremely altruistic acts, like donating a kidney to a...
TED Talks
Neil Burgess: How your brain tells you where you are
How do you remember where you parked your car? How do you know if you're moving in the right direction? Neuroscientist Neil Burgess studies the neural mechanisms that map the space around us, and how they link to memory and imagination.
TED Talks
Laura Schulz: The surprisingly logical minds of babies
How do babies learn so much from so little so quickly? In a fun, experiment-filled talk, cognitive scientist Laura Schulz shows how our young ones make decisions with a surprisingly strong sense of logic, well before they can talk.
TED Talks
Hod Lipson: Building "self-aware" robots
Hod Lipson demonstrates a few of his cool little robots, which have the ability to learn, understand themselves and even self-replicate.
TED Talks
TED: How boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas | Manoush Zomorodi
Do you sometimes have your most creative ideas while folding laundry, washing dishes or doing nothing in particular? It's because when your body goes on autopilot, your brain gets busy forming new neural connections that connect ideas...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What do all languages have in common? | Cameron Morin
Language is endlessly variable. Each of us can come up with an infinite number of sentences in our native language, and we're able to do so from an early age— almost as soon as we start to communicate in sentences. How is this possible?...
TED Talks
TED: What happens in your brain when you pay attention? | Mehdi Ordikhani-Seyedlar
Attention isn't just about what we focus on -- it's also about what our brains filter out. By investigating patterns in the brain as people try to focus, computational neuroscientist Mehdi Ordikhani-Seyedlar hopes to build computer...
TED Talks
TED: How to stay calm when you know you'll be stressed | Daniel Levitin
You're not at your best when you're stressed. In fact, your brain has evolved over millennia to release cortisol in stressful situations, inhibiting rational, logical thinking but potentially helping you survive, say, being attacked by a...
TED Talks
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain
Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically "teenage"...
TED Talks
TED: This is your brain on communication | uri Hasson
Neuroscientist uri Hasson researches the basis of human communication, and experiments from his lab reveal that even across different languages, our brains show similar activity, or become "aligned," when we hear the same idea or story....
TED Talks
Daniel Reisel: The neuroscience of restorative justice
Daniel Reisel studies the brains of criminal psychopaths (and mice). And he asks a big question: Instead of warehousing these criminals, shouldn't we be using what we know about the brain to help them rehabilitate? Put another way: If...
TED Talks
Read Montague: What we're learning from 5,000 brains
Mice, bugs and hamsters are no longer the only way to study the brain. Functional MRI (fMRI) allows scientists to map brain activity in living, breathing, decision-making human beings. Read Montague gives an overview of how this...
Curated Video
The Dress Illusion: Unraveling Visual Perception Mysteries
Dive into the viral sensation of the color-changing dress that puzzled the world, as we explore the science behind visual perception and illusions. Discover how lighting, context, and individual differences in visual processing influence...
Curated Video
Psychology and Society
Four researchers and former professional tennis player Janko Tipsarevic share their unique perspectives on how psychology is relevant to, and overlaps with various aspects of everyday life, from sports psychology to mental illness to how...
Curated Video
The Sociology of Cognitive Science
Neuroscientist Kalanit Grill-Spector (Stanford) gives her view on how psychology has evolved due to the influence of modern neuroscience.
Curated Video
Mindscans
Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck describes some fascinating studies using brain-scanning technology to study mindsets and intelligence, demonstrating that we have far more control over our brains than we once thought.
Neuro Transmissions
A (Brief) History of Brain Sciences
Neuroscience and psychology have a lot in common. But where does one begin and the other end? What are the differences? And how did we end up with these two different-yet-overlapping fields? It turns out that the history of brain science...
Curated Video
Middle School Mindset Part 3: The Power of Neuroplasticity
In this video we delve into the fascinating world of your brain's pathways and the concept of Neuroplasticity. Much like how paths form in a forest, our brain forms and strengthens connections every time we practice a skill, think a...