The Effects of Electrical Stimulation on Language and Cognitive Function

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Yitzchak Fried is professor of neurosurgery and psychiatry in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He was one of the authors of the paper in Nature that I mentioned, and you were in the operating room. Yitzchak: We want to identify areas which are important for language and for other cognitive function so that we can avoid those in the final surgery.

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.