November 21, 2006
Guerilla neuroscience documentaries online:
Obscured TV is a website that is streaming old TV documentaries. They don't have permission to do it, but they believe the programmes are too educational to be left gathering dust in a TV company warehouse. As they have so many classic psychology and neuroscience documentaries in their archives, I can only agree.
Just a word of warning if you're skeptical about these sorts of things - it requires that you install some ActiveX plugin, which is seems painless to install and works OK, but only works in Explorer.
If you're happy with doing that, have a look at this page which has a list of 'human interest' documentaries - largely taken from UK TV.
7 Seconds is a stunning documentary on densely amnesic patients Clive Wearing who has been the subject of some ground-breaking research on the neuropsychology of memory, but also inspires some profound thoughts on identity and remembering.
The Real Rainman, My Family and Autism and Make me Normal profile a number of remarkable individuals with autism, and Teenage Tourettes Camp is a compelling documentary on some UK children with Tourette syndrome who go to a camp in the USA especially for children affected by the disorder (it is both touching and wickedly funny in places).
Another page with documentaries from the Horizon series, includes The Man Who Lost His Body, a documentary about a man who loses his sense of proprioception - the ability to sense where your limbs are, and God on the Brain which contains a memorable scene where Michael Persinger attempts to give Richard Dawkins a religious experience by stimulating his temporal lobes with magnetic fields.
Get them while they're online, as the site probably won't stay up for long!
Link to 'people' documentaries.
Link to Horizon documentaries.
