In this episode, we look at the unseen side of the brain and how the unconscious is responsible for almost everything we do that we take for granted. The brain is constantly making decisions and refining information in order to give us the best possible result, this is true for even the simplest and most insignificant of decisions. We look at a tragic but fascinating example of when this part of the brain is disrupted by meeting a woman who struggles to make even the simplest of decisions due to a motorbike accident that left her with damage to her orbitofrontal cortex.
The unconscious is so powerful that it makes up over 95 per cent of the decisions that we make, despite how in control we feel. This goes even further as Prof Read Montague conducts a fascinating study looking at how our brains genetic makeup can influence our political agenda. So who is really in control of the decisions we make?