Phantoms in the Brain

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BBC Radio 4 LW

Documentaries

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Dramatic stories exploring the nature of physical and mental health.

Dramatic stories of patients and their doctors, exploring the nature of physical and mental health.

Every day, in every hospital, people are being admitted with neurological symptoms like seizures, paralysis, inability to speak or walk. Other patients suffer from psychiatric symptoms such as bizarre delusions or life-shattering hallucinations. Yet not all is as it first seems. Some of those with physical problems will not have identifiable physical causes, and some with apparent psychiatric disorders will have a specific and potentially treatable physical cause. 
   
Through the dramatic stories of patients and their doctors, in this 4-part series, neurologist, Professor Guy Leschziner, presenter of "Mysteries of Sleep" and "The Senses", explores the nature of the complex interactions between physical and mental health; and how modern medicine is revolutionising our understanding of brain and mind.  We discover how novel insights are rapidly breaking down the division between psychiatry and neurology. 


Image:  Amy Hiley amyhileyart.com

BBC Radio 4 FM

Phantoms in the Brain: ‘I'm tired of feeling a prisoner to my thoughts’ – Moksha’s story

‘I'm tired of feeling a prisoner to my thoughts’ – Moksha’s story

BBC Radio 4 - Phantoms in the Brain, ‘I'm tired of feeling a prisoner to my thoughts’ – Moksha’s story

The doctor with OCD so extreme he drives 50 miles every day just to use the toilet at home

How deep brain surgery helped a doctor whose obsessive compulsive disorder became so bad, he wouldn't eat or drink during 30-hour shifts, to avoid using hospital toilets.

In this episode, we meet Moksha, a doctor so debilitated by obsessive-compulsive disorder that he drives at least 50 miles home every day to avoid using the college toilets. He won’t eat or drink anything during weekend-long shifts, so he doesn’t have to use the hospital bathroom. He scrubs his skin with toxic cleaning products to try to rid himself of germs, sustaining chemical burns. Medication provides no relief, but cutting-edge technology - electrodes implanted deep within his brain to change electrical activity - successfully treats his condition, easing his symptoms. 

We also hear from Matthew, whose many years of depression have been associated with feelings of inflammation or infection in his body; and we talk to neuroscientists leading research into how the immune system may influence brain functioning.

These cases cast light on the artificial distinctions between mental and physical health, and how psychological conditions have a basis in chemical or electrical changes in the brain.

Presenter:  Professor Guy Leschziner
Producer: Sally Abrahams
Sound: Neil Churchill

Production co-ordinators: Maria Ogundele and Helena Warwick-Cross
Editor: Clare Fordham

Image: Amy Hiley amyhileyart.com

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Phantoms in the Brain

‘I'm tired of feeling a prisoner to my thoughts’ – Moksha’s story

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