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“Voice box” might be the most misleading term in all of human anatomy. It makes a very complex organ sound terribly simple.

When he got out of medical school Dr. Jian Guan wanted to do pediatric neurosurgery, and he found a top-flight residency at the University of Utah. While there, though, his career took a turn, thanks to the Cheyenne Frontier Days, the world’s largest outdoor rodeo. Cheyenne is a small city, and Salt Lake City is the nearest center of excellence for spine surgery, so every summer, Dr. Guan, sadly, would see a surge in back injuries from rodeo accidents.

Strange though it may seem, we can tone our brain tissue the same way we tone our muscles. The fitness of our gray matter depends on how well we take care of ourselves.

In this episode we chat with Karina Sergi, a licensed therapist, trained the old-fashioned way, who has been exploring a new tool proven to help people who are struggling with persistent depression, addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder: magic mushrooms.

Dr. Evan Walgama is a Head & Neck Oncology Surgeon, which means that he specializes in treating any cancer affecting areas from the collar bone to the base of the brain. While in the past, head and neck cancer surgeons tended to see older patients in poorer health who were often smokers coming in for treatment, the demographics have shifted.

Eight years ago, at age 23, Tatiana Sarkisian was waiting to meet with a professor in her architecture program at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. She remembers her right hand moving across her body on its own, then her body slumping down onto the floor.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Adi Iyer, knows his way around the branching arteries that feed our brains. He treats a variety of diseases there. When a hemorrhagic stroke patient comes into the hospital, he treats the ruptured artery as fast as he can because time lost is brain lost. Listen to this episode to learn how Dr. Iyer does it, and how he can treat aneurysms before they burst.

Sharmyn McGraw knows as much about pituitary disease as some doctors. She learned about it after struggling for years with a medical mystery that began in 1993.

When you’re a doctor treating Parkinson’s disease, it’s a matter of picking the most appropriate arrow from your quiver. There is no cure for the disease yet, but there are more than 20 different medications that can improve a patient’s wellbeing. Dr. Natalie Diaz, a neurologist who specializes in movement disorders, is familiar with all of them.

Judy Davidson is a retired teacher, librarian, and therapist. A few years ago, she began to feel more forgetful. Names of movies she’d just seen escaped her. She became quieter in groups, afraid that she would forget a friend’s name. She recalled her mother’s struggle with Alzheimer's