The brain with David Eagleman. 5, Why do I need you?.

Episode Five - Why Do I Need You? This episode focusses on the aspects of the brain that make it a social organ, fundamentally wired to work with and among others. Presenter Dr David Eagleman repeats an experiment originally conducted by psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel, exploring how the human brain extrapolates social narratives from a film of random moving shapes. He then conducts another experiment exploring how twelve-month-old babies learn to interpret trustworthiness in others. Eagleman visits John Robison, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in his fourties. He explains an experiment Robison participated in at Harvard University, run by Neurologist Professor Alvaro Pascual-Leone. It involved undergoing transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), targeting the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which somehow reversed some of the symptoms of Robison’s Asperger’s. Eagleman runs an experiment measuring movements in participants’ facial muscles to explore "mirroring". He conducts the same experiment with participants injected with botulinum toxin. Eagleman explains the pain matrix and empathy. Peace Activist Sarah Shourd recounts her experiences in solitary confinement in an Iranian prison. Eagleman reconstructs an experiment on subjects kept in solitary confinement, created by Neurologist Naomi Eisenberger. He goes on to discuss social exclusion, and talks about his Jewish heritage and the Holocaust. He describes the ethnic cleansing and genocidal acts that took place during the Bosnian War in the early 1990s. He visits Translator Hasan Nuhanovic at a Bosnian concentration camp, who recounts his experiences losing family members to genocide. Eagleman conducts an experiment using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, to attempt to explore genocide from a neurological point of view. He then explores the brain differences in psychopaths. Dr Lasana Harris talks about an experiment in which he analyses the medial prefrontal cortex in relation to psychopathy and empathy. Eagleman compares genocidal behaviour to an virus epidemic, and discusses the role of propaganda in dehumanisation. He then visits Ray and Rex, alumni from Riceville Elementary School, Iowa, 1968, who participated in an experiment exploring the incitement of racial hatred.