Brainstorm is back with some new members, Rohan Bhagat and Rohan Pandit, and a returning guest, Dr. Sameer Chopra! This week's podcast revolves around the topic of emotional suppression. We discuss with Dr. Chopra how emotional suppression arises, what impact the events happening around us and our cultural influences have on our ability to express emotions as well as place trust in others, and how we can slowly but surely work toward being more expressive and trusting others without being hurt in the process. Then, we discuss our personal experiences in the realm of trust, understanding the situations that caused any lack or even influx of trust, and how we balance our trust in others these days. Tune in to learn more about emotional suppression and trust issues!

This week's podcast features another special guest, Dr. Chintan Shah! He is a family medicine practitioner running his own practice in the state of Florida. In this episode, the Mediminds team interviews Dr. Shah about his clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic, how it has affected him and his co-workers, and what it is like to be a family medicine physician.  Tune in to our latest podcast to learn more about private practitioners and their work during the pandemic!

MediMinds' Brainstorm is back with another podcast after an unexpected hiatus! This week, we take a look into the world of psychiatry while interviewing Dr. Sameer Chopra. He's a psychiatrist at the VA San Diego Healthcare System working in the Oceanside outpatient clinic. We delve into his life as a psychiatrist and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected his work, his clinic, and his patients. He also gives some insight on how he came to be a psychiatrist and how others can follow in the same or similar medical pathway. Listen to our latest podcast episode to learn more about psychiatry and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic!

In the third episode of Brainstorm, the MediMinds team provides our perspectives on an issue that affects most high schoolers and people in general: anxiety.  We talk about how uncertainty affects the brain, share some of the responses we collected from our survey asking what makes people anxious, and express our thoughts on questions proposed by some of the listeners. Enjoy!

Have you ever heard of the phrase "muscle memory"? Do you sometimes wonder how we've learned to do some complex tasks, like speaking, writing, walking, riding a bike, or playing an instrument automatically? Join the MediMinds team in the second episode of Brainstorm, where we discuss the neuroscience behind memory and automaticity with guest speaker Shibu Shelat, a UC Santa Barbara c/o '23 freshman and Mission San Jose High School alumnus. Shibu Shelat is working in a computational cognitive neuroscience lab designed by UCSB's Gregory Ashby, on the complexities of automaticity and its functions. We discuss what automaticity is, what the lab is trying to achieve, how they'll achieve it, and the future applications of their research. We also talk with Shibu about his life at UCSB as a college freshman. Wondering what classes are like in college, how to adjust from high school to college life, how to get involved in undergraduate research, or what's special about UCSB? Listen in to find out! If you have any questions or suggestions, make sure you contact us on Instagram @medi.minds, on our Facebook page MediMinds, or on our website mediminds.org. Enjoy!

In our inaugural episode, we explore the mystery behind dreams. Everyone has done it, but what exactly are dreams? What types of dreams exist? Are nightmares really "bad dreams", or do they present some benefits as well? Why do we remember some dreams vividly and completely forget about others? Can we control what we dream about? And perhaps the biggest question of them all, why do we even dream in the first place? The MediMinds team looks at these questions and provides our own personal perspectives and experiences with dreaming. If you have any questions or suggestions, make sure you contact us on Instagram @medi.minds, on our Facebook page MediMinds, or on our website mediminds.org. Enjoy!