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.
Rated 5 out of
5
by
an interested observer from
A good supplement to the Addictive Brain
Fentenyl is fairly new on the scene. He did a good job of giving an overview of the magnitude of the crisis and providing an update on Fentenyl.
Date published: 2023-06-30
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Thanuja from
Great pilot!
I had only a mild interest about drug-addition or drug-related lectures or courses. But this pilot is eye-opening one. Thanks for professor who is equipped with necessary knowledge to deliver this in engaging manner. I'd recommend this pilot to people who like to know more about Opiod crisis in America. I hope Wondrium could do complete series on science-based drugs and drug addiciton course with this Professor.
Date published: 2023-05-15
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Jewels27 from
Definitely a beginner's video
As a long-term opioid user myself (20 years), I've looked into this epidemic before just to inform myself. I have chronic pain due to being involved in two car accidents, neither accident being my fault and neither injury able to be completely healed by any surgery, time, or therapy - and I've tried a lot of therapies! I found a couple of therapies that help me take significantly less pills, but they are quite expensive and not covered by my health insurance. I've also tried other pain relief options that either don't work at all or they work relatively well, but are also quite expensive and not covered by my health insurance. What is covered by my health insurance? Opioids. Because of course they are - and they are cheap.
The things that help me take less pills, I do the best I can by myself at home and pay for the others only every so often - but the fact is opioids are a part of my day-to-day life, and that's just how it is. Over the last 20 years, I have had to increase the amount I take in order for them to be effective and that concerns me, but my dose is still very low in the world of pain control. I attribute that to my being aware that opioids can be dangerous and need to be respected, and my trying to do additional things to help control the pain in order to take less pills. Videos or articles like this were what opened my eyes to that fact years and years ago.
This video is definitely for someone who has heard there's a crisis and doesn't know much about it. It gives statistics about deaths, how people die, how opioids work, how they become addictive, and how they might cause a person to escalate into illegal drugs. This video might help someone be more compassionate toward someone struggling with a drug addiction. Sometimes it all starts with an injury and a valid prescription for some pain relief, not someone doing some mild illegal drugs and that escalating into something harder.
If I'm rating this as a beginner's video, for someone who really knows nothing except that there's an opioid epidemic, then I feel comfortable giving it five stars. For anyone else, it's over-simplified and doesn't dig deep enough. I'm a big fan of Dr. Thad Polk and I thought this could have been better. I was hoping for more. I think the title of the video would be better to indicate that it's a very simple, introductory video. He does say at the end that if we want to know more, to watch his series on addiction, which I will be doing.
Date published: 2023-02-20
Rated 1 out of
5
by
Thrilling from
A font of misleading information
A highly biased presentation with mis leading and illogical statements. What provides perspective is viewing Lesson 16, The Skeptic's Guide to Health, Medicine and the Media by Roy Beneroch, a GreatCoursesPlus lecture which provides a more balanced and detailed explanation of the "crisis"
Date published: 2021-03-20
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
