Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (#673)

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“I do not take no for an answer. And this is a message that I say to young people, “You should dare to do things. And no one has the right to say, ‘You cannot bring a new perspective into things.’ And so, I always say ‘Be daring and persevere.’”
— Dr. Nora Volkow



Nora D. Volkow, MD , is Director of the  National Institute on Drug Abuse  (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health. NIDA is the world’s largest funder of scientific research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. Dr. Volkow’s work has been instrumental in demonstrating that drug addiction is a brain disorder. As a research psychiatrist, Dr. Volkow pioneered the use of brain imaging to investigate how substance use affects brain functions. In particular, her studies have documented how changes in the dopamine system affect the functions of brain regions involved with reward and self-control in addiction. She has also made important contributions to the neurobiology of obesity, ADHD, and aging.



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#673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)







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Want to hear another episode with someone on the front lines of drug research? Listen to my conversation with Dr. Suresh Muthukumaraswamy in which we discuss the durability of antidepressant effects from certain psychedelic therapies, improving the impact of scientific research, the obstacles to getting ketamine labeled as an antidepressant, the difficulty of applying placebo controls to psychedelic research, the training of clinical personnel in new science as it becomes available, avoiding another 50 years of psychedelic research darkness, and much more .


#619: Dr. Suresh Muthukumaraswamy — LSD Microdosing, Classical Psychedelics vs. Ketamine, Science and Speed in New Zealand, Placebo Options, and The Infinite Possibilities of Studying Mind-Altering Compounds



What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments .



SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…







SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE




Follow the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA):




Website | Nora’s Blog | Twitter | Facebook




Addiction: A Disease of Free Will by Dr. Nora Volkow | APA 2015



Leon Trotsky Was My Grandfather: An Interview With Esteban Volkov | Jacobin



The Trotsky Assassination | History



Bloodstained Ice Axe Used to Kill Trotsky Emerges After Decades in the Shadows | The Guardian



A Theory on the Nature of Physiologic Opiate Dependence: A Formal Statement | NIDA Research Monograph



Understanding Quantitative Analysis in Chemistry | ThoughtCo.



Revolutionary Thinker | The Washington Post



The University Health Science Center at Houston



Cerebral Blood Flow in Chronic Cocaine Users: A Study with Positron Emission Tomography | The British Journal of Psychiatry



The Scientist Battling the Addiction Crisis | Nature



Demerol (Meperidine Hydrochloride, USP) | FDA



Why Fentanyl is a Drug Dealer’s Dream — But a Family’s Nightmare | Narconon



Why Xylazine, the Veterinary Drug That Federal Officials Call an “Emerging Threat,” Doesn’t Respond to Naloxone | CBS News



America’s War on Drugs — 50 Years Later | The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights



The Drug War’s Deepest Failure: Making Users the Enemy | Mother Jones



Undoing Drugs: How Harm Reduction Is Changing the Future of Drugs and Addiction by Maia Szalavitz | Amazon



Dr. Nora D. Volkow: A General in the Drug War | The New York Times



Psychedelic and Dissociative Drugs | NIDA



Psychedelics May Lessen Fear of Death and Dying, Similar to Feelings Reported by Those Who’ve Had Near Death Experiences | Johns Hopkins Medicine



Why Psychedelic Drugs May Become a Key Treatment for PTSD and Depression | Smithsonian Magazine



NIH-Funded Psychedelic Trial Will Study Whether Hallucinogen Can Help Smokers Quit | NBC News



Study Design 101 | Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library



Funding Cutting-Edge Scientific Research | Saisei Foundation



Erik Vance — The Magic and Power of Placebo | The Tim Ferriss Show #194



The Problem at the Heart of Modern Psychedelic Clinical Research | New Atlas



Dr. Suresh Muthukumaraswamy — LSD Microdosing, Classical Psychedelics vs. Ketamine, Science and Speed in New Zealand, Placebo Options, and The Infinite Possibilities of Studying Mind-Altering Compounds | The Tim Ferriss Show #619



Increased Global Integration in the Brain after Psilocybin Therapy for Depression | Nature Medicine



No Hallucinations? LSD Relatives Appear to Treat Depression in Mice without Obvious Side Effects | Science



Psychoplastogens: A Promising Class of Plasticity-Promoting Neurotherapeutics | Journal of Experimental Neuroscience



Psilocybin Mushrooms Found to Help People with Alcohol Use Disorder | NBC News



Psilocybin Therapy Sharply Reduces Excessive Drinking, Small Study Shows | The New York Times



How Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit | Short Wave



Neurocircuitry of Addiction | Neuropsychopharmacology



Dr. Gül Dölen on Rethinking Psychedelics, New Applications (Autism, Stroke, and Allergies), The Neurobiology of Beginner’s Mind, Octopuses on MDMA, and The Master Key of Metaplasticity | The Tim Ferriss Show #667



Dr. John Krystal — All Things Ketamine, The Most Comprehensive Podcast Episode Ever | The Tim Ferriss Show #625



How Does Ketamine Work Differently from Other Psychedelics? | Psychology Today



Intranasal Salvinorin A Improves Neurological Outcome in Rhesus Monkey Ischemic Stroke Model Using Autologous Blood Clot | Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism



Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: A Review of Its Evolution and Current Applications | Industrial Psychiatry Journal



Deep Brain Stimulation | Johns Hopkins Medicine



Ultrasound as a Neurotherapeutic: A Circuit- and System-Based Interrogation | Focus



Low-Intensity Continuous Ultrasound Therapies — A Systematic Review of Current State-of-the-Art and Future Perspectives | Journal of Clinical Medicine



Focused Ultrasound for Parkinson’s Disease | The Michael J. Fox Foundation



An Investigation of Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound for Addiction | NIH Reporter



Is It Too Soon To Start Talking about a Cure for Addiction? | Nora’s Blog at NIDA



Why Is There Comorbidity between Substance Use Disorders and Mental Illnesses? | NIDA



Suicide Deaths Are a Major Component of the Opioid Crisis that Must Be Addressed | NIDA Archives




SHOW NOTES




[06:09] Cadaver homework.



[09:07] The Trotsky connection.



[17:07] How Nora’s father viewed the role of science.



[20:59] Julian Villarreal.



[27:38] A perspective of perseverance.



[33:48] Instilling perseverance in younger scientists.



[35:08] Dancing with Demerol.



[40:05] The current state of addiction in the US.



[44:28] The War on Drugs.



[49:42] Increasing societal confidence in therapeutic psychedelics.



[55:38] Advice for researchers seeking more federal funding.



[1:02:12] Gauging the value of the hallucinogenic experience.



[1:06:04] Implications for multiple applications of one compound.



[1:13:36] Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and a promising alternative.



[1:19:49] New hope for Parkinson’s disease sufferers?



[1:23:51] Comorbidities, addiction considerations, and other parting thoughts.




MORE DR. NORA VOLKOW QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW



“… Science should be guided by data, but science has a religious nature to it also. And once a model is created, it becomes very difficult to change it. And it takes a long, long time for concepts that have been consolidated, as accepted as the truth, to be questioned.” — Dr. Nora Volkow



“I do not take no for an answer. And this is a message that I say to young people, “You should dare to do things. And no one has the right to say, ‘You cannot bring a new perspective into things.’ And so, I always say ‘Be daring and persevere.’” — Dr. Nora Volkow



“In terms of the war on drugs, I think that basically what it did was it created a mechanism that could perpetuate structural racism. It is very tragic to see how its enforcement led to the incarceration of young black Americans.” — Dr. Nora Volkow



PEOPLE MENTIONED




Esteban Volkov



Leon Trotsky



Francisco Franco



Joseph Stalin



Ramón Mercader



Natalia Sedova



Julian Villarreal



Ruy Pérez Tamayo



Richard M. Nixon



John Ehrlichman



Matthew W. Johnson



Robin Carhart-Harris



Michael Bogenschutz



Peter Hendricks



Gül Dölen



John Krystal

The post Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (#673) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss .