The Science behind Touch, Pleasure and Pain

For the ten million or so people that saw Fifty Shades of Grey this past weekend, or the many more millions who read the books, in a way what they were doing is trying to understand touch. The complex ways in which our bodies and our brains process pleasure and pain. Why childhood development is so crucial to that process and the ways in which touch shapes our sexuality, our cooperation, our well being and our own internal interaction between the physical and emotional world.

Professor of neuroscience David Linden, examines this interface in his new book Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind.

My conversation with David J. Linden:

Fear of pain and other stories

We all remember, or have learned about, FDR telling the nation that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” In fact, it along with a clip from The Kings Speech is being used in a commercial for a new technology that might help us overcome, what is considered everyone's worst fear, that of public speaking.

Perhaps we remember Woody Allen fearing that the universe was expanding, and how that seemed like a good enough reason to skip school, in 50’s era Brooklyn.

The country is on the brink of disaster because we have elected officials who are afraid of voters, and most of all, afraid of not being reelected.

The bottom line is that in a macro world view, or in the intimacy of our personal lives, fear is a powerful motivator. But what would happen, how would the world change, how would we change, if we could mitigate or eliminate that fear?   That's what Patty Chang Anchor set out to discover in Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave

My conversation with Patty Chang Anker: