Brainwaves Our World

-- he appears to be the only choice. Time for Our World. The human brain

is unique. It is the most complex organ in the human body. When it

goes wrong, it can be devastating. Its true potential is unknown. How

do we fix it and how do we keep it at its peak? We are facing a

tipping point in where we are up with the search on mental illness.

Answers are being found by delving My first major suicide attempt was

in 1995. It is like this black hole. You convince your brain that you

would be better off dead because that darkness is all-encompassing.

This man has been living with bipolar disorder for most of his

life. It runs help him but he never knows when he might have another

serious but potentially deadly at the so it -- medication helps him.

You are introduced to a new medication and you always get that

placebo effect. This time it is going to work! And then four weeks

later after you get the actual efficacy of the medication and it

does not work, you have to come off that medication - slowly because

you cannot do anything suddenly because it will push you into an

air as though - medication, different combinations of

medication... 16 steps down the line after starting the medication,

I have come to a place where I am relatively stable. But I never know

what will happen tomorrow. There could be hope for people like him.

Scientists trying to understand mental disorders like serious

depression now have access to powerful new technology. By

understanding the mechanisms of the human brain, they are gaining an

insight into our minds, changing what happens in the clinic. This is

what it is all about - the human brain. This one came from a healthy

adult female. Scientists are beginning to understand how it

works and what makes it go wrong. This is one of the main technology

is giving scientists that fresh insight. The radio with a will

inject the individual and then one can record the measurements that

come from the subject for the next hour. -- videographer. Using the

latest in brain scans, scientists have focused on one area of the

brain and that becomes overactive in depression. Area 25. They can

actually see what is going wrong and which medication works best.

This technology is already having a real impact, significantly

improving the way patients are treated. In ground-breaking

research, a London team taught computer software to recognise

patterns in images. They predict which patients will go on to

develop the most serious forms of psychosis. We are showing that when

people come to us with their first episode of psychosis, we can

already distinguish the people who will do better from the people who

will get worse. This will allow us to start thinking about using

different treatments for these different groups of people.

It is the professor's job to analyse these results. He believes

such developments could transform psychiatry.

Up until now, our approach to mental disorders has been at a

surface level. There was no analysis in the same way that has

been there for the last 50 years in medicine. This is an opportunity to

take psychiatric diagnosis beyond it the descriptive and into the

deep a biological level. It is not just imagine if that is bringing

about this revolution. The battle is also being fought in the

largest genetic study of people with bipolar disorder is taking

place in Cardiff. This man is in charge. We are trying to identify

genes and molecules which are involved in bipolar disorder and

that will give us a clear and better understanding of some of the

causes and triggers of bipolar disorder. One of his patients is a

meal and he has returned to Cardiff to give the team an update on his

progress. How have things been going over the last four years?

think I am starting to see the green shoots of getting better. The

last four years have been challenging. At times, desperate.

Some of the genetic findings particularly from start -- Family

Studies let us know how to identify people at high risk of illness and

some of those things we already used in the clinic from day to day.

We are finding that some of the genes that appear to be important

in the susceptibility to bipolar disorder have a wider roles in the

human brain and can also affect rates of schizophrenia and

Recurrent Depression. We are now beginning to understand why people

have such a complex mix of symptoms that do not fit easily into one

diagnostic box. As scientists begin to undertake

the workings of the human brain, the challenge is to find new and

more effective treatments. Up until now, it has been hit and miss,

stumbling across medications that happened to work. With a new tools

like brain scans and genetics, scientists can talk about a more

sophisticated approach, bringing the medicine of mental health out

of the Dark Ages and into the 21st century.

At his country retreat, a professor is brainstorming with a select

group of UK scientists. As head of a $1 billion Agency in the US, his

opinion carries some weight. Their job today is to come up with new

ways to treat people. What is really intriguing is the

development of new compounds. There works within three hours, instead

of six weeks. Is that the same cat to mean that is used as a horse

tranquilliser? It has been around for decades. People believe it

affects a target in the brain that will change within six weeks of

treatment with conventional anti- depressants. The drug itself is not

safe long-term and people relapse after a week. But it is one example

of how scientists are coming up with faster and more effective

treatments. That is what has them excited. This is a potentially

deadly illness for which you would want to have treatments that do not

take six for eight weeks to work. You want something that works

quickly. In that sense, this is a game change it. It is that kind of

advance scientists hope we all think about -- scientists hope will

change the way we all think about mental illness. That he is not

something in the mind that people should pull themselves together

over. Over the next generation, we will move to a situation where

psychiatry is much more like cardiology or other medical

specialists, where we have a range of tests like imaging tests of the

way the brain functions, blood- testing know about susceptibility

functions -- factors and other sorts of psychological well tests

that will help to wrecked us to the diagnosis and allow us to know more

accurately how to help people -- held direct us to the diagnosis.

For meal, that is the goal of the project. Hundreds of people will

try to commit suicide. I am not saying they are all bipolar

disorder patients but they will have something wrong with them in

another way. If we can do something about that, that will be good.

Scientists have no way of saying if knowing what is happening inside

the human brain will answer all of our questions about mental illness.

But with these new technologies at their disposal, science is changing

the approach. And for many people, that will be the difference between

Most of us want to reach our true potential, now science and

technology is offering to take us beyond human. Drugs to turbocharger

our brains. Just how far do we want to go? You are a fighter pilot on a

long demanding mission. Your life and that of your colleagues depends

on you being awake and alert all of the time. There are drugs you can

take to keep you focused, would you take them? This is one of those

drugs, modafinil, normally prescribed for wakefulness with

people with sleeping disorders. It is being tested to see if it can

improve performance. There is an underground movement of people

taking it because they believe it is improving their cognitive powers.

I have come to the Centre for Brain And mind sciences, I will try it

for myself. I have taken modafinil a few times, primarily for its

ability to increase wakefulness. To allow me to concentrate and stay

awake for 20-38 hours at a time. Laurie Pycroft is in his second

year at Oxford University. He sees no real difference between taking

modafinil. He is getting hold of the drugs over the internet. If I

was going to take modafinil, there are a variety of websites available

online which one can at size, you can purchase the deals. -- access.

It is pretty easy for someone with a credit card or a bit of cash to

pay someone. Anders Sandberg has a background in computing and

neuroscience. He is a researcher at humanity is issued. He talks openly

drugs. I suspect that the advantage is smaller than I would like it to

be. In that case they might not be much of an ethical problem here. --

there might. There is a question of using the drugs in the best way.

Dusting up on my studying might not slate to consolidate your memory.

Some cognitive enhance us like Ritalin are prohibited to buy

without as -- a prescription. I am back in Cambridge to find out the

effects the cognitive enhancing drug has on me. There are safety

concerns. James Rowe is a neurologist, part of a research

team testing cognitive enhance as light van to see if they help

people with Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's. -- like modafinil. If

you would like to take that. Here we go. How do we actually conduct

the test? This is the second Test at the Cambridge unit, I am about

to take the tablets. I do not know

modafinil. I have got to wait for a co cours for the drug to

take effect. This professor is part of the Cambridge team working with

ep deprived surprived surorm better on

van. She thinks these drugs could play a far wider role in society.

think we have undervalued them. -- better on modafinil. We have seen a

10% improvement on memory score could lead to a higher A-level

grade. That is a big improvement. As a society we could move forward

if we all had a form of cognitive and has meant that was a. Taking

drugs to enhance cognition... -- enhance ment that was safe. Back in

1998 Kevin Warwick became the world's first cyborg. Part human,

part robot. He had a chip in planted in his arm and wide up into

his nervous system. His wife had a similar operation. There is became

the first central nervous systems to communicate electronically over

the internet. -- theirs. The next step is brain to brain. The big

advantage is that we will not have to communicate in this mechanical

speech form, it will be able to communicate in terms of images,

ideas, emotions, feelings. It is tremendously exciting. This is the

second time we are going to do the test. In Cambridge I am about to do

a bit of self experimentation of my own. In the first half you are

going to see a square in the middle of a screen. I have to complete two

sets of computer-games over 1.5 hours, to test my memory, strategy

and planning, to see if modafinil has any effect on me. If I said one,

two, three, you would say three, two, one. This is to rate how

you're feeling. How are you feeling? Physically I am feeling

more myself. I would have to guess that last time was when I was given

the modafinil. I will find out if I was right in a minute. In our

pressurised society you might be tempted to pop a pill to achieve

the best we can the fast as we can. What if there were drugs that could

make us kinder, more considerate, more moral? Scientists are about to

start tests on a range of hormones that could do just that. We could

reduce the testosterone levels. Testosterone generally chance to

make people more aggressive. -- tends. They could become

problematic in certain situations, like on the stock market for sports

fields. Professor John Harris supports the idea of cognitive

enhance ment but sees risks in dabbling with values. They are

morally enhanced if they are better capable of making moral judgments.

Better capable of considering alternatives, realising the

consequences of their actions, realising the wider context in

which they act. Most of that is likely to be more achievable

through cognitive enhance ment rather than moral. Moment of truth.

Can you guess? It is very hard. I think it is quite marginal. If I

was forced to guess I was the first time was when I had modafinil.

is very interesting, you are not correct. That is interesting. I

would definitely say I feel more myself today. On the Test, when it

came to moving those balls on the screen, you did very well. He did

even better today on the modafinil. On the memory recognition task my

score went up from eight out of ten to nine out of ten. A 10% increase.

What we have seen when you are taking van are some very striking

improvements in memory. -- taking modafinil. What about the risks? My

Test Brom medically supervised. With these drugs we do not know the

long-term effects on the brain. -- my guests were medically supervised.

If he can show long-term safety and health in humans, we should

regulate the strides in the normal way. -- you can shave. If safety is

improved, some see no reason to hold back. It is difficult to think

of a possible place to limit your intelligence or cognitive powers.

If you can improve your cognitive powers, and by doing so allow

education to operate from a higher base, it might be cost-effective to

society. We can increase the power of our brain through exercise and