Episode 4: The Man by the Window

Each morning, Alfonso watches the same elderly man through the window across the coffee shop. As a journalist, he's used to observing people, but something holds his interest.

At first, it’s just his walk. Then Alfonso realizes why it feels so familiar. His grandfather had the same gait.

That recognition compels an otherwise healthy 42-year-old on a quest for answers to a question many of us have quietly wondered: How much of our future is already written in our genes?

Episode 4 of Tales From the Cortex follows Alfonso’s search for answers, from a chance coffee encounter to observations made on the streets of London more than two centuries ago, and ultimately to the rapidly changing landscape of genetics, environmental risk and the earliest signs of a neurodegenerative disease.

Because inheriting risk is not the same as inheriting a destiny.

And sometimes, seeing someone else’s story makes us wonder about our own.

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