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Episode details

World Service,08 Mar 2012,18 mins

29/02/2012

Health Check

Available for over a year

Claudia Hammond makes it her cheerful mission to slay common myths about the brain and its workings. Neuroscientific nonsense in Claudia's cross hairs includes the notion that if we are creative arty types we use the right hand side of our brains and if we are logical and scientific we are dependent on the left side. She meets Professors Sophie Scott and Sarah-Jayne Blakemore from University College London, Dr Roi Cohen Kadosh from Oxford University and Dr Sergio della Sala at Edinburgh University, who have done research that shows this idea isn't true. The second myth Claudia busts is that a full moon makes us do strange things. Dr Eric Chudler of the University of Washington is her guide to why this idea has taken hold and why there is no evidence to support it.

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