The Importance of Memory in Neuroscience

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"We are what classical physics was in the end of the 90th century. We haven't yet gotten to, you know, relativity," he says. "I have had a patient that is stimulated and suddenly they say, oh, I have a memory of Led Zeppelin or Bohemian Rhapsody." He adds: "Can we affect it? Do we understand it?"

While operating on a 16-year-old girl who suffered from severe seizures, neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried stumbled on the region of the brain that makes us laugh. To neuroscientist Patrick House, Fried's ability to produce laughter surgically raises deep and disconcerting questions about how the brain works. Join Fried, House, and EconTalk's Russ Roberts for a live broadcast from Jerusalem's Shalem College that is a sequel of sorts to House's earlier appearance on EconTalk. House and Fried discuss the mystery of consciousness and try to square the biological bases for emotions with the circle of our humanity.