Mindshock: Sex on the Brain

First transmitted on Channel 4 in July 2006

Alex was a young soldier when he was critically injured in a skiing accident; one of more than a million people every year in Britain who suffer head injuries. But when he woke up from a coma, Alex's personality had dramatically changed: he had lost all sexual inhibition. Mindshock: Sex on the Brain looks at Alex's case and what it means for our understanding of wrongdoing and guilt. While Alex's behaviour - from ogling women's breasts and making inappropriate remarks, to charging naked into a stranger's hotel room - is a source of embarrassment and concern to his family and incomprehension to others, it also reveals the way that the higher functions of the brain are normally able to put a damper on our base urges. But when the brain is injured, these animal instincts are sometimes able to act unhindered.

Alex's experience also raises questions about whether some people can be judged guilty of crimes when a number of experts believe they are incapable of knowing the difference between right and wrong. Michael, a former teacher in the US, lost his job and family, condemned as a child molester, after admitting to fondling his stepdaughter. But Professor Russell Swerdlow, a neurologist, became convinced that Michael's actions were the result of an undiagnosed brain tumour that was crushing his frontal lobe: when it was removed his behaviour returned to normal.

Featuring interviews with Alex and Michael, as well as their families and experts, the film asks what their experiences can tell us about how our brains control our actions, and whether injury can ever excuse crimes.

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