In this video I describe the 3 main classifications of psychoactive drugs: stimulants, depressants (including narcotics), and hallucinogens. I provide several examples of each drug type, the associated effects on the nervous system, and the relationship to concepts of neuroadaptation, … Read More
How Do Drugs Influence Neural Communication?
In this video I describe how psychoactive drugs can influence neural communication by passing through the blood-brain barrier and acting as either agonists or antagonists. The brain also responds to this influence via neuroadaptation which can create tolerance and withdrawal … Read More
Theories of Dreaming: Freud, Activation-Synthesis, & Information Processing
In this video I describe three approaches for thinking about dreaming; a Freudian perspective, the activation-synthesis model, and information-processing theory. Freud emphasized the role of the unconscious and believed that dreams could be divided into manifest content and latent content, … Read More
Is Polyphasic Sleep Possible?
In this video I describe the polyphasic sleep schedules often promoted by lifehackers as ways of reducing the need for sleep. Though these schedules originate from sleep research, they are intended for maintaining performance in situations necessitating chronic sleep deprivation … Read More
Sleep Disorders
In this video I describe the symptoms and treatment for several sleep disorders including insomnia, sleep apnea, sleepwalking, night terrors, sleep paralysis, REM sleep behavior disorder, and narcolepsy. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel to see future videos! Have … Read More
What Happens When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep?
In this video I describe the effects of sleep deprivation. Sleep is about more than just rest, recovery, and energy conservation and it plays an important role in memory consolidation and integration of our experiences into a coherent sense of … Read More
Stages of Sleep
In this video I introduce the different stages of sleep and the brain waves associated with each. NREM Stages 1 and 2 are characterized by theta waves, while NREM Stage 3 slow-wave sleep is associated with delta waves. REM sleep … Read More
The Circadian Rhythm
In this video we’ll consider a different state of consciousness that occurs during sleep. Our pattern of wakefulness and drowsiness varies throughout the course of the day and this is known as our circadian rhythm. This cycle is influenced by … Read More
How Much Control Do We Have Over Our Minds?
In this video I consider how much control we have over our own minds. We may not have as much control as we think and this can be demonstrated in ironic processes of mental control as well as unconscious processes. … Read More
The Somatic Marker Hypothesis
Do we need emotions to make decisions? In this video I describe Antonio Damasio’s Somatic Marker Hypothesis and then discuss research using Antoine Bechara’s Iowa Gambling Task to assess how emotional reactivity guides decision-making in healthy controls and patients with … Read More