{"podcast":{"title":"BRAINLAND","slug":"brainland-6744859","podcast_index_feed_id":6744859,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6452b6516dd22500113dc7ca","website_url":"https://shows.acast.com/brainland","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/6452b6516dd22500113dc7ca/1683142831630-6485c986c1518411e134acc7a157bc98.jpeg","author":"Ken Barrett","episode_count":93,"summary":"Brainland the podcast navigates the boundary between neuroscience, the arts and humanities with the occasional wander off piste. It began as a neuro-historical exploration of the background to the Brainland the opera but quickly spread its wings. A Brainland Collective production. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","last_synced_at":"2026-06-26T20:17:13.397969+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859"},"episode":{"title":"HORROR ON THE BRAIN: The neuroscience behind sci fi and horror.","slug":"horror-on-the-brain-the-neuroscience-behind-sci-fi-and-horror","published_at":"2025-12-11T08:50:01+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859/horror-on-the-brain-the-neuroscience-behind-sci-fi-and-horror","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859","url":"https://shows.acast.com/brainland/episodes/horror-on-the-brain","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6452b6516dd22500113dc7ca/e/693845024f84d8410fb2447f/media.mp3","summary":"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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","meta_description":"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 relat…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2667,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/brainland-6744859/episodes/horror-on-the-brain-the-neuroscience-behind-sci-fi-and-horror/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859/horror-on-the-brain-the-neuroscience-behind-sci-fi-and-horror.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}