This is PsychTalks: a podcast that deep dives into groundbreaking research in psychology. Hear psychology and neuroscience experts unpack how our minds work – and discover how these insights can enrich your own life and help others. Made by the University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences.
Publisher
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
Category
education · health & fitness · science · society & culture
Can your lifestyle choices affect your child’s brain?
Before you’re even born, your parents’ health is already shaping your future wellbeing. Welcome to the world of epigenetics: where environmental factors – stress, diet and infection – leave molecular marks on genes, altering their expression across generations.
Professor Anthony Hannan from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health (https://florey.edu.au/) shares how a father’s health can impact offspring development, why our hunter-gatherer brains struggle with modern life and how precision medicine could transform future healthcare.
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22 Sept 2026
What are children trying to tell us when they struggle at school?
Many children are struggling to attend school, but what if we've been getting the story wrong?
In this episode of PsychTalks, Dr Sarah Knight and Natasha Staheli explore how children's distress is often mistaken for misbehaviour and why terms like "school refusal" can fail to capture the reality of many children's actual experiences, especially the role of neurodivergence and impact of masking.
Together, they look at what parents and educators can do to better support children so they feel safe, understood and ready to learn.
Yellow Ladybugs (https://www.yellowladybugs.com.au/) is a non-government organisation, dedicated to the happiness, success and celebration of autistic girls, women and gender diverse individuals.
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8 Sept 2026
Why do so many drivers say "sorry mate, I didn't see you"?
If you’ve ever looked directly at a motorcyclist while driving – yet completely failed to see them – you’re not alone. The phenomenon is so common, riders refer to it as a “smidsy” (or, “sorry mate, I didn’t see you”.)
Professor Kristen Pammer (https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/1111883-kristen-pammer) and Dr Angus McKerral (https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/1125064-angus-mckerral) discuss the cognitive demands of driving; explaining how inattentional blindness can render a motorcyclist invisible and exploring the promises and pitfalls of self-driving cars.
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