Episode 6: The Brain and Grief
Special thanks to Piotr Szulc for sound editing.
This month’s episode is about the way the brain processes loss, and why we experience the emotion of grief. We’ll be thinking about the evolutionary relevance of grief, how the brain modulates it’s own experience of grief and what happens in the brain when what is considered “normal grief”. Music has the power to heal, and on this episode, we will be exploring how one organization has used music to help countless youth.
Guests
Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor
Dr O’Connor is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology University of Arizona, and studies the neurobiological, immune and autonomic parameters that vary between individual grief responses.
Dr. O’Connor’s scientific interest is in emotions, in understanding them at the experiential level and the physiological level. Her work has primarily focused on a bereaved population, because of the wide-ranging emotional responses to this specific event. In particular, she studies the neurobiological, immune and autonomic parameters that vary between individual grief responses. Specifically, her techniques have included functional and structural neuroimaging, immune and endocrine analysis of saliva and blood, and psychophysiological assessment of heart rate variability. She is continually interested in novel ways to evoke emotion, especially grief, using personalized stimuli, reaction time paradigms, written emotional disclosure and virtual worlds.
Dr. Peter Freed
Dr. Peter Freed is a psychiatrist in New York, New York. He received his medical degree from University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and has been in practice between 11-20 years.
Special links
Track Listings
Jojo Abot – To Li
Roni Size & Reprazent – Brown Paper Bag
Gang Starr - Code Of The Street
Paul Simon – Mother and Child Reunion
Idris Muhammad – Could Heaven Ever Be Like This
Shintaro Sakamoto – Love If Possible
94 East (ft. Prince) – Just Another Sucker
Solange – Almeda
Wande Coal – So Mi So
Wunmi – Greedy Body
Sérgio Mendes – Magalenha
Melé – Sunshowers
Ikebe Shakedown – Assassin
Ebo Taylor - Saana