On this episode of River to River, host Ben Kieffer talks to neuroscientist Ted Abel — the founding director of the Iowa Neuroscience Institute at the University of Iowa. For decades, Abel has been studying sleep in humans, how sleep aids in storing memories and keeping the brain, and body, healthy. Listeners also share their questions about the intersection of sleep, dreams and memory.
Sleep deprivation can have tremendous impacts on our health and well-being. But it also has an impact on our justice system. Later in the hour, we hear from Kimberly Fenn of Michigan State University about her work looking at how 50 percent of false confessions resulted from more than 12-hour interrogations and the trouble with deriving information for an investigation from an exhausted subject.
A portion of this episode was produced on 11-16-2021. Another portion of this episode was produced July 19, 2021.
Guest:
- Ted Abel, Roy J. Carver Chair in Neuroscience, Director of the Iowa Neuroscience Institute and chair of the Department of neuroscience and Pharmacology in the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa
- Kimberly Fenn, associate professor of Psychology, Michigan State University
