How the Brain Works

The famed neurologist talks to Fresh Air about how grief, trauma, brain injury, medications and neurological disorders can trigger hallucinations — and about his personal experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs in the 1960s.

In the book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, neurologist Oliver Sacks explores the relationship between music and the mind.

Through a series of case studies ranging from songs stuck in one's mind to a newfound passion for concert piano after being struck by lightning, the professor of Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the NYU School of Medicine examines the complexity of human beings and the role music plays in our lives.

New research shows that teenagers' brains aren't fully insulated, so the signals travel slowly when they need to make decisions. Neuroscientists Frances Jensen, who wrote The Teenage Brain, explains.

Neurological researcher Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke 12 years ago. While the damage caused by a stroke is often devastating, Taylor was able to make a complete recovery after becoming her own experimental subject.

Neuroscientist Dean Buonomano explains why our brains make mistakes when we try to remember long lists of information or add large numbers in our heads. Humans live "in a time and place we didn't evolve to live in," he says.