Psychology, medication and experiments

• BBC Horizon: Total Isolation

For the first time in 40 years Horizon re-creates a controversial sensory deprivation experiment. Six ordinary people are taken to a nuclear bunker and left alone for 48 hours. Three subjects are left alone in dark, sound-proofed rooms, while the other three are given goggles and foam cuffs, while white noise is piped into their ears.
The original experiments carried out in the 1950s and 60s by leading psychologist Prof Donald Hebb, was thought by many in the North American political and scientific establishment to be too cruel and were discontinued.
Prof Ian Robbins, head of trauma psychology at St George’s Hospital, Tooting, has been treating some of the British Guantanamo detainees and the victims of torture who come to the UK from across the world. Now he evaluates the volunteers as their brains undergo strange alterations.

• History Undercover: Declassified – Human Experimentation

By and large, the United States has escaped the accusation of war crimes having led the world to victory in two global battles. But, the History Channel reveals a dark chapter in the nation’s past in History Undercover: Declassified – Human Experimentation. In 1996, secret U.S. military operations were discovered that presents a very different picture of national policy. Experiments with biological weapons and the testing of chemical warfare were only part of the story. Here, those that took part describe the Cold War projects in chilling detail.

• BBC Horizon: How Violent Are You?

In a thought-provoking and disturbing journey, Michael Portillo investigates one of the darker sides of human nature. He discovers what it is like to inflict pain and is driven to the edge of violence himself in an extreme sleep deprivation study.

He meets men for whom violence has become an addiction and ultimately discovers that each of us could be inherently more violent than we think, and watches a replication of one of the most controversial studies in history, the Milgram study. Will study participants be willing to administer a seemingly lethal electric shock to someone they think is an innocent bystander?