Austin Lim's book 'Horror and the Brain' uses work from the horror and science fiction genres as a way into discussing a neuroscience and a range of related stories. We discuss why on earth so many people inflict the feelings provoked by horror fiction on themselves ans talk about a range of brain structures that play a role in fear, emotion and attachment behaviour (with a diversion into love, oxytocin and prairie voles). We talk about the amygdala, insula and the pathways that include them and the systems triggered by disgust and the uncanny, moving from the real story of a mass shooting to various films and stories, including Jordan Peele's 'Get Out' and 'Us', Gondry's ' Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'. Brain mapper Wilder Penfield leads us into a closing horror story (real if you happen to be a mouse) about Toxoplasmosis. Great chat with an excellent communicator.

Participants:

Austin Lim, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Neuroscience, De Paul University, Chicago. https://csh.depaul.edu/faculty-staff/faculty-a-z/Pages/neuroscience/sean-austin-lim.aspx

Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk

Austin's book 'Horror on the Brain': https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Horror-on-the-Brain/Austin-Lim/9781493084791

The 'uncanny valley': https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Horror-on-the-Brain/Austin-Lim/9781493084791

More on oxytocin: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666497621000813

Opening music: Prelude to the opera Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown. 

Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk

Sketch by KB.

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