Why do great thoughts and stories resonate so strongly with so many people, and how do we communicate them? Using fMRI experiments, Uri Hasson is looking for the answers.

Why you should listen

Rather than purging real-world complexity from his experiments, Uri Hasson and his Princeton lab collaborators use messy, real-life stimuli to study how our brains communicate with other brains.

Using fMRI to peer into his subjects’ brain activity, Hasson has discovered that a great storyteller literally causes the neurons of an audience to closely sync with the storyteller’s brain -- a finding that has far-reaching implications for communicators, teachers, performers, and scientists alike.

Uri Hasson’s TED talk

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Live from TED2016

What happens in the brain when we hear stories? Uri Hasson at TED2016

February 19, 2016

We may, as Joan Didion once wrote, tell ourselves stories in order to live—but Uri Hasson is looking for a few more reasons. The neuroscientist based at Princeton University researches the neurological basis of human communication and storytelling, and in session 11 at TED2016, he shows off some surprising findings. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) […]

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