My Brilliant Brain is a riveting series that tries to answer questions about human intelligence. Do differences in gender and brain size enable individuals to excel far beyond their peers? Can education and environment help enable anyone to become a prodigy? Using computer generated images, brain scans and expert testimony we unlock some of the brain's biggest mysteries. In “Make me a Genius,” we cover Susan Polgar, who is the world's first female chess grandmaster. She wasn't born with her brilliant brain - it was created by a unique experiment that dominated her childhood. We explore how male and female brains are different and also explain miracles of memory. In “Born Genius,” we highlight Marc Yu, a seven-year old like no other. At the age of two he heard "Mary had a little Lamb,” pulled himself up to a piano and played it back flawlessly. A year later he was playing Beethoven. We look at how a brain grows from conception to puberty to explain the marvel of gifted children. In “Accidental Genius,” George Widener is autistic and a prodigious savant who can give you the day of the week for any date in history and thousands of years into the future. He is one of about a hundred people in the world who have a serious disability but also a seemingly superhuman mental power. We show how remarkable talents can emerge as a result of disability or trauma. The bonus episode of “My Musical Brain” combines the cutting-edge experiments of top neuroscientists and the experiences of top musicians such as Sting, Michael Buble and Wyclef Jean to reveal why music is so important in our lives. It explores our collective passion for music and illuminates how the brain uses music to create human experience.

• 2 discs; 188 minutes
• © 2010