Broken Brains

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Description

Head injury, epilepsy, experimental surgery gone wrong - in this program, host Michael Mosley provides evidence that these medical misfortunes have helped break new ground in understanding how healthy brains work. Examples include HM, the victim of a botched lobotomy that left him unable to form new memories, but whose subsequent participation in studies significantly advanced knowledge of human memory; Paul Broca's identification of a speech production area in the frontal lobes, illustrated by a visit to the Musée Dupuytren, where the brains of his patients are still preserved; and the case of a split-brain operation that cured epilepsy, but with an unforeseen result: the patient's left hand seemed to have a mind of its own.