Review for My Brilliant Brain

My Brilliant Brain is a fascinating series of documentaries regarding the brain and its development. I did worry that this was just going to be multiple shows about geniuses and though they are shown here, it also goes through a lot of problems that the people have when the brain is not allowed to develop. Stories cover Marc Yu, who at age of two was able to play the piano, Susan Polgar who is attempting to become the first female chess grandmaster and George Widener, who is an autistic who can tell you the day for any date in history. These stories are remarkable and do show that a great deal of this skill and 'genius' is down to nurture rather than nature. The mother of Marc Yu reveals how she used to play music to him while he was in the womb and that she would continue to play music to him during his early months of life which obviously instilled in him a musical gift. This development is simply fascinating and the documentary goes a long way in explaining just how this is all possible.

The Musical episode is also a great look at a number of musicians including Sting, Wyclef Jean and Michael Buble and the effect of music on the brain. This is possibly the best episode from this set looking at how music has an emotional and physical effect on the brain and on memories. The way that the brain can predict what the music is going to do and then when it does something different it sticks in the memory.

My Brilliant Brain would have been a much more enjoyable documentary if it had focused on things other than geniuses and I think that is why the Music episode is so much more enjoyable. However, the documentaries are wonderfully made and don't drown the viewer in too much information that makes it too difficult to watch.