The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a great festive season tradition dating back to 1825, with past lecturers including David Attenborough, Richard Dawkins and Dame Nancy Rothwell. They're currently broadcast on BBC Four television and are tailored for family viewing.
This year's lectures, "Meet the Brain", will be delivered by Prof Bruce Hood of the University of Bristol, who plans to entertain and educate his audience with demonstrations of the structure of the brain, how it encodes information about the world and determines our behaviour, and how the developing brain transforms us into the social animals that we become as adults.
The first lecture is entitled "What's in your head?"
Prof Hood gave Alok Jha a flavour of what we can expect.
The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures will be broadcast on BBC Four at 8pm on 27, 28 and 29 December.
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