Oliver Sacks, M.D. is a physician, a best-selling author, and a professor of neurology at the NYU School of Medicine. The New York Times has referred to him as “the poet laureate of medicine.”
He is best known for his collections of neurological case histories, including The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain and An Anthropologist on Mars. Awakenings, his book about a group of patients who had survived the great encephalitis lethargica epidemic of the early twentieth century, inspired the 1990 Academy Award-nominated feature film starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.
Sacks is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books.
The Bodybuilder: Oliver Sacks’ Days on Muscle Beach
The renowned neurologist remembers his bodybuilding days on Venice, California’s Muscle Beach.
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Tapping Into Musical Memory
A new documentary, “Alive Inside,” exposes the connections between music and memory.
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Oliver Sacks And The Search For The Giant Squid
In this 1997 conversation, neurologist Oliver Sacks describes the island of the colorblind, then chats with a researcher searching for giant squid.
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Oliver Sacks: ‘Hallucinations’
In his latest book, neurologist Oliver Sacks explores the strange world of hallucinations, and documents his own experiments with psychedelic drugs.
Oliver Sacks and ‘The Mind’s Eye’
Neurologist Oliver Sacks talks with Ira about vision, the brain, and how the two can work together—or can work against each other.
Oliver Sacks: ‘Musicophilia’
How does music affect the brain? Join Ira in this segment for a conversation with neurologist and author Oliver Sacks about the brain and music.