This is Your Brain on Drugs Seminar

When scheduling for the spring semester of my freshman year, I decided to take an Honors seminar entitled This is Your Brain on Drugs. My brother was a PhD candidate in statistics at the University of Kentucky, and he told me that almost all funding for their department was for opioid research. It is no secret that the opioid epidemic has and will continue to hit the Midwest hard. Since I was majoring in biomedical engineering, I figured it was important for me to understand the importance, complexities, and implications of substance use disorders.
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This class was impactful in my life from the very first class. My classmates and I were encouraged to foster discussion to make the class more engaging and relevant. We discussed a variety of drugs and their effect on the brain, including but not limited to alcohol, nicotine, methamphetamine, and opioids. I found the biological approach to the topic to be highly interesting as the psychological perspective is more widely known by the general population. Most people know at least one person in their life who struggles with a substance use disorder. This class opened my eyes to idea that those suffering from a substance use disorder must quite literally rewire their brain to have a chance of ending their dependence to the drug. I hope to apply this knowledge both in my field of practice and in my everyday life.