Follow one of the top cognitive neuroscientists to discover how opioids affect our brains and how they have contributed to an alarming crisis of overuse and even death in this country.
The Opioid Epidemic: America's Deadly Addiction
Opioid addiction is a heartbreaking national epidemic. We'll help you understand how we got here-and how we can get out.
Overview
About
Thad A. Polk is the Samuel D. Epstein Collegiate Professor of Psychology and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan. He earned an interdisciplinary PhD in Computer Science and Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University and received postdoctoral training in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. His teaching has been recognized by numerous awards, and he was named to The Princeton Review’s list of the Best 300 Professors in the United States.
01: The Opioid Epidemic: America's Deadly Addiction
Drug overdose is the single most common cause of death for people under 50 years old in the US and the numbers have rocketed up just in the last two decades, averaging 175 deaths per day. Professor Thad Polk attributes one of the causes to the use of opioids, which have seen an upswing in popularity after pharmaceutical companies and doctors advocated their use for chronic pain in the 1990s. Join this award-winning professor of psychology to explore these shocking numbers as he delves into how opioids affect our brains, why they are so addictive, and what we can do to counter this crisis.
35 min
