Drugs and Brain

Released: 2005-10-11

Runtime: None minutes

Episode Overview

The human body manufactures its own painkillers to ensure survival when injured. This program shows how opium and its derivatives, heroin and morphine, hijack that natural pain-numbing ability. Illustrating the brain's ability to alter its own chemistry when attacked by drugs, the program depicts the process by which brain receptors become desensitized and thus addicted. Tranquilizers - and the potentially lifelong physical dependency and psychological problems they can cause - are also studied.

Series Overview

By studying the action of drugs on the brain, scientists penetrate the workings of human consciousness. A documentary series in which we discover, in five parts, that the study of the effect of drugs helps to understand the functioning of the brain.