Summary: 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...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In terms of lost and reduced productivity, migraines cost U.S. employers more than
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: How well do we understand the neurology of learning? Why does the brain's ability to learn diminish as we age? Can science find a way to extend brain "fitness," even for the very old? This program addresses those questions as it describes important medical experiments and studies. Topics include the central role of nerve cell connections in learning and cognitive development; cerebral...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Are exercise and smart eating the best tools for staying youthful and attractive? Or is there a third ingredient in the fountain of youth-namely, clinical adjustments to the body's chemistry, perhaps with drugs derived from other creatures' hormones? This program examines the subject of hormone therapy and its link to longevity studies. Outlining the role hormones play in sexual attraction, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Despite steady advances in medical science, there is still no end to the long list of illnesses in need of treatment. This program examines symptoms and risk factors associated with a wide variety of maladies, including those that derive from the stresses of modern living. Respiratory disorders, such as allergies and chronic bronchitis; neurological problems, including headaches, seizure...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: As has occurred with most drugs, the neurological effects of cannabis have only recently been fully identified and understood. This program presents some of the latest findings, including new investigations into the clinical applications of the drug. Focusing on studies of the nerve-related mechanisms triggered by the action of cannabis, the program highlights potential changes in the social...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Four years have gone by since the two preschool boys profiled in Autism and Applied Behavioral Analysis began intensive ABA therapy-formerly considered controversial, but now hailed as one of the few effective approaches to treating the disorder. This ABC News program brings viewers up to date on the boys and further explains the benefits of ABA in treating autism. But the program communicates...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Even though many experts recommend eight hours of sleep a night, getting that much rest often seems impossible. This program offers ten scientific ways to get quality sleep, and more of it. These techniques include sleep restriction programs for people with insomnia, explained by Professor Colin Espie of the University of Glasgow's Sleep Centre; fasting to beat jet lag, presented by Harvard's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Research has shown that some children with autism who are enrolled in a curriculum of applied behavioral analysis at a young enough age can be mainstreamed right into the public school system. This ABC News program profiles two children with autism who receive this intensive form of therapy and discusses the mixed results of it. Although the degree of improvement attributable to ABA varies from...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Mute until the age of nine, Stephen Wiltshire learned to communicate through realistic, richly detailed drawings. Alonzo Clemens sculpts clay animal figures with great precision, even though he can barely form a sentence. Matt Savage faced extraordinary developmental problems as a child but has become a teen prodigy among jazz musicians. What is the relationship between creativity and autistic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Aided by powerful new diagnostic tools, scientists are making dramatic discoveries about how addiction affects the brain. In this program, Moyers goes into the laboratory to follow researchers engaged in charting an "image of desire" in the brain. We actually see images of a cocaine user's brain as the drug takes effect, and a doctor explains how these scans reveal addiction as a chronic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: The vast majority of drug addicts are not criminals; tobacco and alcohol, both perfectly legal in most societies, are used and abused in staggering abundance. This program details the ways smoking and drinking chemically take hold of the brain. Explaining the many reasons-besides nicotine-for tobacco's stealthy effects, the program describes the existence of thousands of other addictive...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: It is the size of the frontal cortex that helps separate the human brain from that of other animals. This part allows humans to communicate, infer meaning, and imagine, all basic to the socialization process. But there is a group of people, primarily males, who lack a small piece of this frontal cortex and who suffer from a mild form of autism. Identified as Asperger's syndrome in 1940, this...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: What is it like for people with autism, living among others yet always, in a sense, living alone? And how do their parents cope, as they care for them? Built around several case studies, this program distinguishes between high- and low-functioning autism; illustrates structural and functional differences between autistic and non-autistic brains; considers genetics, neurological diseases, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Like an avenue filled with neon signs, the brain's so-called pleasure pathway can light up or go dark, depending on what sort of stimulation it receives. This program explores the workings of the human nerve center under the influence of cocaine, amphetamines, and other stimulants, and shows how our understanding of brain disorders and drug addiction has increased by studying these drugs....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Chad is mesmerized by trains. Mikki's passion is washers and dryers. And for Derek, life is a game show, where he is the host and anyone within listening range is a contestant. While these boys might seem like any other children, their intense obsessions are early symptoms of Asperger's syndrome. In this program, ABC News correspondent Jay Schadler reports on that neurological disorder, which...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This documentary takes viewers on a tour of the world's most prolific manufacturer and user of drugs-the human brain. The biochemistry of the brain is responsible for joggers' highs, for the compulsion of some people to seek thrills, for certain kinds of obsessive-compulsive behavior, even for the drive to achieve power and dominance. The program explores developments in the biochemistry of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Hallucinogenic plants may be the oldest drugs in the world, and were probably used in rituals during prehistoric times. In the 20th century, LSD and ecstasy became the hallucinogens of choice. This program recounts how science has gradually become aware of the properties of hallucinogens, both natural and synthetic. It also provides a detailed look at the effects of such substances on the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Why does tolerance for alcohol differ so widely from person to person? Do genetic factors make alcoholism unavoidable in some people? Should we drink at all? This program searches for answers, following addiction expert Dr. John Marsden as he observes-and participates in-experiments that assess alcohol's neurological and physiological impact. After exploring basic chemical and evolutionary...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Children with autism turn into adults with autism: an obvious fact, but one that remains inadequately addressed by society. Through the uplifting stories of Paul deSavino and Jamie Hoppe, two adults with autism who enjoy the support of their parents, life coaches, and others dedicated to their well-being, this ABC News program looks at America's overall unpreparedness in helping such adults...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Using sophisticated 3-D animation, this program, divided into two parts, takes viewers on a journey deep into the brain to study the effects of the three substances. The first part illustrates the major functions of the brain and shows how its principal cells, the neurons, communicate with each other through electrical and chemical signals. In the second part, animated molecules of nicotine,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Do people with autism experience love, romantic attraction, and heartbreak the same way non-autistic people feel those emotions? This ABC News program profiles Paul DeSavino, a 36-year-old man living with the disorder who says he is amorously drawn to a female acquaintance. Interviews with Paul, his mother, and autism expert Dr. Peter Gerhardt shed light on the complexities of the subject. An...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Reudiger Gamm performs complex arithmetic instantly and without help-his brain stores numbers like a calculator. Orlando Sorrel remembers exactly what he was doing on any date, at any hour, and can accurately predict the day of the week thousands of years in the future. Kim Peek-the original "Rain Man"-has read 12,000 books and hasn't forgotten a single word. What lies behind these astonishing...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Nick van Bloss possesses astonishing musical talent. He is also afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome. As this program illustrates, the two are often linked, leading those born with the disorder to view it as both a curse and a gift. Nick's journey-taking him from the humiliating loss of his career as a concert pianist toward a more self-assured acceptance of his condition-is not only inspiring;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007