The faces of our friends and family are instantly recognisable to us—but about 1 in 50 of us say that looking at a face is like looking at a brick wall.

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Do men and women have fundamentally different minds? We re-examine the science to see if testosterone really is king when it comes to our gender formation.

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Being a parent can be very rewarding, but if you are managing your own mental health you may not be able to be the parent you’d like to be. It can be sad and confusing for kids too—and they often take on a caring role.

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Now that we know about brain plasticity, many of us hope that we can improve the control we have over some of our brain states.

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Placebos, virtual reality gaming, Pavlov’s-dog-style conditioning, and just plain care are some of the proven ways that our minds can treat and heal our bodies. There’s a growing body of scientific evidence confirming what we may already suspect about how mental states can affect health—but what are the limits of mind-body medicine?

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When a professor of artificial intelligence had disturbing brain injury symptoms as a result of a concussion, he lost his former self—but encouraged by the potential of brain plasticity he changed the course of his life.

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The corpus callosum links one side of our brain to the other. It’s not essential for survival, but in some people it’s missing or malformed, causing quite mild to extreme disabilities. The good news is that research is now revealing that it holds intriguing secrets about brain plasticity.

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9/11 was an inside job, Princess Diana was murdered in a government plot, and the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked. There’s a conspiracy theory for just about every major event—but believers aren’t just on the paranoid fringe, wearing tin foil hats.

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Traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines hold the key to a powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world.

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Having a sense of meaning in life can protect against chronic disease—but those who lack social connection are more prone to ill health. We talk with Steve Cole about social genomics.

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Rhythmic music can affect how the brain controls our stress response. We discuss with counsellor Simon Faulkner how group-based drumming taps into people’s emotions—and when combined with reflective discussion this can be an effective alternative form of therapy.

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Psychiatrist Daniel Fisher would like to shift the paradigm of mental health services and empower people to play a strong role in their own recovery—so he’s teaching emotional CPR.

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As the festive season—and budgets—approach, we discuss how to wise-up to money. Lynne Malcolm and Claudia Hammond talk dollars and sense.

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Twenty percent of American boys are diagnosed with ADHD by the time they turn 18—is ADHD being overdiagnosed and overtreated? Alan Schwarz, Florence Levy, and Rae Thomas give their perspectives.

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