Club Kaur: Recent Episodes
Club Kaur
Club Kaur is an interdisciplinary podcast exploring science stories. Hosted by Dr. Angel Kaur, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at UNC Asheville, each episode is created by undergraduate students enrolled in one of Dr. Kaur’s classes. Join us as we delve into a variety of topics with one simple goal - to get it less wrong.
Join us as host Gianna Richard discusses the film Memento and the role short-term memory loss plays in the film.
In this podcast, we analyze the uses of Ketamine. Here, we seek to understand the creation of Ketamine, new medicinal findings for Ketamine, and understand the abuse mechanisms of Ketamine. Ketamine abuse is a growing problem in our country, so we think it is very important to understand the good and bad things about Ketamine.
Requiem for a Dream (2000) is arguably one of the most critically acclaimed films about drugs in the 21st century. With a multitude of awards and an iconic soundtrack, Requiem for a Dream captures the highs and downfalls of four unfortunate souls who fall victim to addiction. Join Brianna Dempsey, a psychology and neurology student at UNCA, as she delves deeper into the meaning of Requiem for a Dream.
According to the CDC, illegal fentanyl is the main driver of the recent increase in opioid deaths in the United States. What is the history of fentanyl, its uses, and the role in addiction and in the opioidepidemic? Join us on our podcast episode “The Rise of Fentanyl” where we’ll be discussing these points and more.
With America’s Opioid Epidemic in full swing, it is time that we look into the options that we have available to us. This podcast will dive into an alternative medication that has proven to be effective in helping individuals get and stay off opioids with dramatic success: Ibogaine.
In this episode, we discuss the drug cannabis and the social and legal issues surrounding it. Hopefully this will bring some new insight to the ongoing discussion as to whether marijuana should be used medically, and whether the stigma surrounding its use be abandoned or not. Let's get started!
Episode 27: PTSD Treatment with MDMA BY HALEY ENTEN
MDMA has shown to be a promising drug for treating individuals with chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when used as an adjunct to psychotherapy. Tune in to learn more about how this drug can help treat those with PTSD.
This episode was produced as part of an upper level course on Neuropharmacology taught by Angel Kaur during Fall 2016 at UNC Asheville.
Articles Referenced * Danforth, A.L.; Struble, C.M.; Yazar-Klosinski, B.; Grob, C.S. MDMA-assisted therapy: A new treatment model for social anxiety in autistic adults. Progress in Neuro- Pyschopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry 2016, 64, 237-249. * Mithoefer, M.C.; Wagner, M.T.; Mithoefer, A.T.; Jerome, L.; Doblin, R. The safety and efficacy of ±3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with chronic, treatment-resistant posttraumatic stress disorder: the first randomized controlled pilot study. Journal of Psychopharmacology 2011, 25, 439-452. * Mithoefer, M.C.; Wagner, M.T.; Mithoefer, A.T.; Jerome, L.; Martin, S.F.; Yazar-Klosinski, B.; Michel, Y.; Brewerton, T.D.; Doblin, R. Durability of improvement in post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and absence of harmful effects or drug dependency after 3,4- methylenedioxymethamphetamine-assisted psychotherapy: a prospective long-term follow-up study. Journal of Psychopharmacology 2014, 27, 28-39. * Sessa, B. MDMA and PTSD treatment "PTSD: From novel pathophysiology to innovate therapeutics." Neuroscience Letters 2016. * Young, M.B.; Andero, R.; Ressler, K.J.; Howell, L.L. 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine facilitates fear extinction learning. Translational Psychiatry 2015, 5, 634-641.
Related Reading Episode Transcript (PDF) Credits Written, Directed by: Haley Enten
Featuring: Haley Enten, Julia FieldsScientific Research by: Haley Enten
Recorded, Edited by: Matthew Bailey
Additional Sound Engineering: Cat Sawyer
New episodes New episodes arrive every third Tuesday
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MDMA has shown to be a promising drug for treating individuals with chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when used as an adjunct to psychotherapy. Tune in to learn more about how this drug can help treat those with PTSD.
Episode 26: Sleep & Memory in College Students ASHLEY DUNKLE, STRO HASTINGS, THOMAS CUNNINGHAM, ERIKA BURKE, & CHELSEA SKINNER
Studying longer is always better: or is it?
Is putting in all those hours throughout the night to prepare for a test the right way to do it? Stressing to get good grades, lacking sleep, and drinking caffeine to stay up late. Well, it could have the opposite effect than desired. This episode was produced as part of a 200-level Fundamentals of Neuroscience course taught by Angel Kaur during Spring 2021 at UNC Asheville.
Watch the Prezi version of this episode
Articles Referenced * Alotaibi, A. D., Alosaimi, F. M., Alajlan, A. A., & Bin Abdulrahman, K. A. (2020). The relationship between sleep quality, stress, and academic performance among medical students. Journal of family & community medicine, 27(1), 23–28. * Bear, M. F., Connors, B. W., & Paradiso, M. A. (2020). Neuroscience: Exploring the brain. Jones & Bartlett Learning. * Cowan, E., Liu, A., Henin, S., Kothare, S., Devinsky, O., & Davachi, L. (2020). Sleep Spindles Promote the Restructuring of Memory Representations in Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex through Enhanced Hippocampal-Cortical Functional Connectivity. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 40(9), 1909–1919. * Henin, S., Borges, H., Shankar, A., Sarac, C., Melloni, L., Friedman, D., Flinker, A., Parra, L. C., Buzsaki, G., Devinsky, O., & Liu, A. (2019). Closed-Loop Acoustic Stimulation Enhances Sleep Oscillations But Not Memory Performance. eNeuro, 6(6), ENEURO.0306-19.2019 * Hershner, S. D., & Chervin, R. D. (2014). Causes and consequences of sleepiness among college students. Nature and science of sleep, 6, 73–84. * Li, W., Ma, L., Yang, G., & Gan, W. (2017). REM sleep selectively prunes and maintains new synapses in development and learning. Nature Neuroscience, 20(3), 427-437.
- Lo, J. C., Bennion, K. A., & Chee, M. W. (2016). Sleep restriction can attenuate prioritization benefits on declarative memory consolidation. Journal of sleep research, 25(6), 664–672.
- Lund HG, Reider BD, Whiting AB, Prichard JR. Sleep patterns and predictors of disturbed sleep in a large population of college students. J Adolesc Health. 2010 Feb;46(2):124-32. Epub 2009 Aug 3.
- Maheshwari, G., & Shaukat, F. (2019). Impact of poor sleep quality on the academic performance of medical students. Cureus, 11(4).
- Patrick, Y., Lee, A., Raha, O., Pillai, K., Gupta, S., Sethi, S., Mukeshimana, F., Gerard, L., Moghal, M. U., Saleh, S. N., Smith, S. F., Morrell, M. J., & Moss, J. (2017). Effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive and physical performance in university students.Sleep and biological rhythms, 15(3), 217–225.
- Scullin, M. K., Fairley, J., Decker, M. J., & Bliwise, D. L. (2017). Poor Sleep Quality and Compromised Visual Working Memory Capacity. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS, 25(6), 583–594.
Related Reading Episode Transcript (PDF)
Credits Written, Directed, and Featuring: Ashley Dunkle, Stro Hastings, Thomas Cunningham, Erika Burke, & Chelsea SkinnerScientific Research by: Ashley Dunkle, Stro Hastings, Thomas Cunningham, Erika Burke, & Chelsea Skinner Additional Sound Engineering: Cat Sawyer
New episodes New episodes arrive every third Tuesday Follow us
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Why do certain treatments only work for certain types of people with schizophrenia? How can insight into one’s own conditions help? Through the movie A Beautiful Mind, we examine how the narrative of schizophrenia has evolved with growing research and we introduce how treatments and insight into these treatments leads to an individualized and more effective diagnosis.
Psilocybin has been posited as a groundbreaking, yet controversial, treatment for severe depression. But what does the research say about it? In this episode, we discuss the history, mechanisms, legal standing, and efficacy of psilocybin in a therapeutic setting.
Methamphetamine abuse affects over twenty million individuals in the US, with users criminalized instead of seen as individuals struggling with a serious illness. Join us as we discuss how meth abuse affects an individual's brain and life, and what we can do as a country to help these individuals heal post-drug abuse.
In the film A Clockwork Orange, the character of Alex is used to illustrate Freud's theory of psychoanalytic and psychosexual stages in order to debate the question: “Is the morality of man inherently Violent?” This episode explores how the film demonstrates these themes through the use of symphonic sound, and dystopian setting.
In the film Disturbing Behavior (1998) the filmmakers warn of the dangers of neuroscience as it both sculpts the youth and fails to promote ubiquity. Tune in to hear how the color, mise-en-scene, and dialogue are used to convey this message.
In this episode, we dive right into some secrets about Lithium that you may have otherwise not known, we sure didn’t until we did the research! From its beneficial effects, to the disorders it is used to alleviate, and its potential neurotoxicity - we use explanations of the drug’s history, neurological/biological mechanisms, and personal stories and experiences to give you all the information you need to know about the drug.
No longer just science fiction, bio-printing can solve a lot of important social problems like creating organs, helping us produce homes, and even make food. Tune in to learn more about all that bioprinting can do and how!
MDMA, molly, ecstasy, all of these are words for the same drug: 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. MDMA is classified as a schedule 1 drug with no medicinal use and widely thought of as a party drug, but does it actually have the potential to change the lives of those with PTSD? Find out in today's episode as we explore the history and recent literature on MDMA.
UNCA Mass Comm majors Lizzie Menta and Danny Secor discuss the movie Brain on Fire and its hidden commentary of the unspoken, life-or-death problem within the United States mental health system.
We all drink caffeine, but what do you know about how it works and what it does to the body/brain? This month's episode is here to answer all your questions!
Ever felt stressed? Ever wanted a natural cure to perk you right up that’s not cocaine? Well, how about valerian? Tune in to learn more about this plant and its possible uses in treatment of anxiety and depression.
Magic Mushrooms, shrooms, Psilocybin. Whatever the name, this serotonin hallucinogenic drug has been demonized for decades and yet offers a promising alternative to current therapeutics. Join us to meander through the ages as we rediscover all Psilocybin has to offer.
In this episode, Tyson asks Colin about the differing effects and history between DMT and Ayahuasca. From the scientific insight of DMT, to the ever questioned legality of the drugs, this episode will leave you informed and questioning why we still keep Tyson on this show.
Ever wondered what’s happening in the brain when we experience trauma? How does a brain change when someone experiences post traumatic stress disorder? Tune in to find some answers!
Opioid overdoses take lives all around us, but what if you had the ability to help? Join us as we learn about Naloxone, the wonder drug that can stop opioid overdoses in their tracks!
What types of treatments are available for opioid addiction and overdose? And, can chemists find a way to outsmart opioids to save lives? Tune in and dive into a neuropharmacological action adventure story!
What is it about horror music that makes it so frightening? And, what makes horror music so good at making movies more scary? Viewer beware… you’re in for an informative video!
Can DMT join the ranks of Ketamine and LSD on a growing list of scheduled drugs that can be used for therapeutic benefits?
“Turn on and tune in” to look at the history of LSD in the US and what LSD does in the brain.
Fish oil supplements make big promises, but how much can they actually do? And can there be too much of a “good” thing?
How do film editing techniques affect the way we perceive a film? Can intensity and chronology alter viewers perception and focus?
Popular culture would have you believe that TTX could be used to simulate death, even create zombies, but is this science fiction or fact?
What is the motivational force behind Club Kaur? Host Dr. Angel Kaur discusses this and more with episode 2 co-creator Reid Gudger.