Well we had to get to it at some point. In this episode of Neurratives, Nick and Stephen tackle the first of a yet-unspecified number of episodes that will tackle movies dealing with the myth that humans only use 10% of their brains. We'll be taking a look at 2014's Lucy, directed by Luc Besson, best known for Taken, Leon: The Professional, and The Fifth Element. The titular character played by podcast favorite Scarlett Johansson, is forced into being a drug mule and when she is exposed to an overdose of the drug, she 'unlocks' the rest of her brain. Predictably, things go completely off the r ..read more

Well it turns out that a musical about a brain-computer interface made it to Broadway a few years ago and of course Stephen and Nick are contractually obligated to review it. In this episode about the 2019 Broadway musical Be More Chill, based on the young-adult novel by Ned Vizzini, our hosts dive into this goofy, very strange musical about a teenager who tries to use an AI BCI called a 'SQUIP' to become popular and the unexpected consequences that follow. What do we have to say about this show's take on BCI? Which one of our hosts hates red Mountain Dew and which one loves it? Why did this s ..read more

Enough of weird obscure old movies that Stephen digs up from the dregs of IMDB-it's time for a big commercial hit movie! The third-biggest commercial movie ever (as of recording) in fact! That's right, it's time for us to cover Avatar: The Way of Water. In the first Avatar movie, still the highest-grossing movie ever, we saw characters use brain-computer interfaces to remotely operate giant blue genetically-engineered bodies on a planet whose fauna is connected through a planet-wide neural gestalt consciousness. With the first movie laying that foundation, what fun new neuroscience will James ..read more

The boys are back! After an unintentionally long hiatus, Nick and Stephen return with a discussion of Netflix's JUNG_E, directed by Yeon Sang-Ho (Train to Busan). In this film, a team of scientists struggles to perfect a combat AI using the neural data of a decorated military veteran. We'll explore the implications of this movie's world of loose, permissive neural data protection and connect it to real-world brain-computer interfaces.  Also, we power rank combat robots. You won't want to miss out ..read more

We've been judging these movies on their own merits for too long and now it's time to pit all these pieces of fiction against each other in a battle royale for neuro-cinema supremacy! As we move into the next batch of episodes, we'll be placing what we watch into a ranking system. In preparation for that, this episode we'll be live-generating initial preliminary rankings of everything we've watched so far. Join Nick and Stephen as we indulge our inner mean girls by labeling, then judging all these movies against each other. Rankings will be able to be found here and will be updated as new epi ..read more

It's our first musical episode of Neurratives! Sort of. This week, we're taking a look at season 6, episode 6 of the medical sitcom Scrubs, 'My Musical.' In this episode of the show that pioneered the single-camera, laugh track-less, dramedy sitcom style, an unknown neurological disorder causes a patient to hear the entire cast as singing in theater showtune style. Nick is a complete musical theater newbie, while Stephen has been a wannabe theater snob for years. How accurate is this show's depiction of musical hallucinations? Has this put Nick off of musicals forever? Why are we doing a musi ..read more

It's part 2 of our journey into the neuro-adjacent filmography of Paul Verhoeven with 1990's Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger! At long last, Stephen got to make Nick sit through this utterly absurd sci-fi classic about a construction who goes to have memories of an amazing Martian vacation implanted into his mind, with some unexpected consequences. Artificial memories, planetary colonial insurgencies, and copious amounts of gaslighting--this movie is a lot, but where does it stand in the pantheon of memory-themed films we've covered on this podcast? Tune in to find out!  ..read more

It's the episode of 2022 and we're starting the year off with 1974's The Terminal Man, based on the Michael Crichton book of the same name. Nick and Stephen dive into the world of a patient suffering from a neurological condition so debilitating, that doctors must resort to a radical treatment that is Definitely Not deep brain stimulation. How does this movie's depiction of neuromodulation stack up to what modern neuromodulation ended up being? Tune in to find out! More reading: Short pop science article that describes the bull guy: https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-man-who-fought-a-bu ..read more

A non-negligible amount of wine was consumed during recording of The Matrix episode, resulting in the magnificent three-hour, inebriated trashfire that was the original raw recording. Lots of shenanigans were had--here are some highlights that didn't make the final cut ..read more

It's time to enter The Matrix! And what better way to send off 2021 than having our first guest? Dr Jessi Mischel joins Nick and Stephen for a two-and-a-half hour (!!!) descent into wine drunkenness where we cover neuroscience, brain-computer interfaces, and the staggering inefficiency of humanity as a power source. Nick reveals cringy details about his past, Jessi gets very upset at percutaneous connectors, and Stephen breaks from excessive laughter. Music: 'Blippy Trance' - Kevin MacLeod ..read more