About this episode

Joshua W. Brown, Ph.D. discusses the intersection of spirituality and medicine, exploring the scientific basis of mind-body effects and healing.

“Placebo effects are real and mind-body effects are real, and there's a fairly large scientific literature on these things,” says Joshua W. Brown, Ph.D. Brown is a professor of Psychological and Brain Science at Indiana University, where he directs the Cognitive Control Lab. He also co-founded the Global Medical Research Institute With decades of experience in computational neuroscience and over 79 peer-reviewed publications, he brings the same rigorous scientific methodology to extraordinary claims of healing that he applies to understanding the brain. 00:00 - A neuroscientist's brain tumor diagnosis 07:29 - Prayer with expectation 10:43 - The biology of belief 12:13 - Inside the Global Medical Research Institute 17:14 - Even known placebos still work 20:27 - The science of miracles 24:10 - Conversion disorders & the mind-body line 32:02 - The brain is a prediction machine 38:02 - How chronic stress writes itself into the body 41:18 - Why "just believe" doesn't work 43:22 - Healing happens in community 47:16 - When neuroscience met the Dalai Lama 50:26 - The morning practice that grounds his day Referenced in the episode: To learn more about Brown, visit his website…

People in this episode

Guest: Joshua W. Brown, Ph.D.

Topics covered

• spirituality
• placebo effect
• mind-body connection
• neuroscience
• healing
• community

Keywords

• spirituality
• medicine
• placebo
• neuroscience
• healing
• community
• belief
• stress
• miracles

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Global Medical Research Institute, Indiana University, Cognitive Control Lab

Products: Brown’s book

Places: the body

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