Today's featured videos focus on one of the largest and most complex organs in our body: the brain. Hear from mental health experts Dr. Nora Volkow and Dr. Kafui Dzirasa, learn about neuroscience and mind control with Dr. Greg Gage, and discover how gamers are mapping the brain with Amy Sterling. Please add these videos to your lesson plans and view our teacher/parent tips and suggested follow-up questions for students here.
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Inside the Addicted Human Brain with Dr. Nora Volkow Dr. Nora Volkow is well known as a pioneer in the study of addiction. After spending more than three decades studying how drugs affect the human brain, she has contributed substantially to the widely held conclusion in medical science that drug addiction is a chronic disease that physically changes the brain. Dr. Volkow is the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, which oversees most of the world’s research on drug abuse and addiction.
Brain Machine Integration with Dr. Kafui Dzirasa Dr. Kafui Dzirasa is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who is helping to lead what many are calling the next future breakthrough in brain research – the better understanding, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. As Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University, Dr. Dzirasa is known for his groundbreaking research into understanding how changes in the brain, including genetic influences, produce neurological and mental illness. His many achievements include being awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by President Obama in 2016.
The Neuroscience of Mind Control with Dr. Greg Gage This co-founder and CEO of Backyard Brains is a published neuroscientist and electrical engineer who is developing new tools, curriculum and experiments that allow the general public to participate, hands-on, in neuroscience discovery. He’s an award-winning investigator at the National Institute of Health, and he was recognized by Barack Obama for being a Champion of Change for his commitment to citizen science.
How Gamers are Mapping the Brain with Amy Sterling Amy Sterling is the Executive Director of EyeWire, the virtual reality game that is designed to help researchers map the brain. Amy crowdsources video-game players by having them join hundreds of thousands of other participants around the world in playing EyeWire to solve challenging 3D puzzles, and in the process, players produce data of their neural activity.
More STEM Resources
Our partners at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences are offering free STEM virtual learning resources. Their Science Education Partnership Award program includes STEM and informal science education projects for pre-K through grade 12, including apps, interactives, and curricula. Pathways, a collaboration between NIGMS and Scholastic, provides a student magazine, lesson plans, activities, and videos about basic science and research careers.
