is a week devoted to raising awareness of the unique health issues facing teens. Among the core themes of Teen Health Week℠ is , addressing the impact of various substances on teens and how overuse or misuse can lead to addiction. One of our key goals in is to address the themes of Teen Health Week with the students in our youth programs and give them the tools to help make healthy life choices that will benefit them through their entire lives.
Recently, the students of the met with , an expert in studying substance use and addiction. Dr. Khalid is a clinical postdoctoral fellow at the , where she and her colleagues are examining the physiological effects of substance use. Dr. Khalid shared her research with our students and explained to them the impact of different chemicals on the brain and how different substances such as alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and opioids can lead to dependency and addiction. For example, opioids , resulting in a feeling of euphoria. Prolonged usage causes people to develop a tolerance to the substance, requiring higher doses to trigger the same effect as their initial exposure. This continuous use and growing chemical tolerance can lead to a chemical dependency.
More than telling them about these concepts, Dr. Khalid allowed the Junior Fellows to apply their newfound knowledge for themselves. Breaking them into small groups, the students conducted experiments on , a species of flatworm that are commonly used in scientific testing. Each student received a planarian, exposed it to different levels of substances, and monitored its reaction. The substances they tested included caffeine and sugar, and different concentrations of these substances triggered different reactions. As they exposed their subjects to different chemical levels, Dr. Khalid challenged them to predict how the planarians would react based on their observations and test their predictions through experimentation and observation.
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