Make Up Your Mind

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Scientists are making impressive inroads into the neurology of conscious thought and the mental processes that help make up our unique identities. This episode of Scientific American Frontiers studies the brain's frontal lobe-the seat of personality and the chief determinant of what we do every waking second of the day. The program reconstructs a 150-year-old accident that caused railroad worker Phineas Gage to lose his sense of self; examines the behavior and reasoning powers of children (whose frontal lobes are immature); and monitors the brain activity of host Alan Alda as he struggles to make decisions
Welcome to Make Up Your Mind (0:50)
Phineas Gage's Accident (1:35)
Skull of Phineas Gage (2:15)
Effect of Gage's Injury: Loss of Executive Skills (0:59)
Brain Anatomy (4:02)
Immature Frontal Lobe (3:08)
Rule Changes: Attentional Inertia and Verbal Cues (5:02)
Adult Version of the Card Sorting Game (2:40)
Executive Control: Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (2:32)
Stroop Effect (3:16)
Prepotent Emotional Response vs. Reason (4:58)
How Emotion and Rationality Compete in Decision Making (5:44)
Into the Dark: Blindness Experiment (5:03)
Brain Anatomy Lesson: Blindness Experiment Results (6:05)
The Power of Half: Michelle Mack's Story (5:25)

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