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Nora Volkow

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70
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2023-05-25
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2023-05-25
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  1. “But there's also a selfish component into it. I think that for me, it's totally uninteresting to hear a response that I already would have thought myself. And I think that brains work better when you expose them to unexpected stimuli.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “Force them to think differently because there is a predictive element in a lot of the things that is a reflection of the influence of others. And I want that innovative way, that association that others have not done, I want to encourage them to play with it.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “That we are doing in many fields of science, but for me, as someone that is in neurosciences and neuroimaging, it is crucial to basically enable us to understand and to actually integrate databases that are very diverse and distinct. So that I owe to Julian. He would challenge me, he would basically give me questions that would make me think. That's what I like. And I actually, he taught me that. And this is something that as a mentor now of young scientists, I basically want, I put them in positions where I force them to think and to think differently. I mean, for example, you have students and postdocs and they present me the data and I ask them, well, what do you make of it? And they give me an explanation. And I said, okay, now I want you to give me the most outrageous explanation that you can get of this data in order to”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “While he was introducing me to a lot of the analytical methods to be able to define variables, I mean, I realized this was very much before its time. Right now, for example, a lot of the analysis that we do employ vectors as a means to actually describe a trajectory of something more than one point. And he was introducing me to those technologies and says, Nora, learn about it and he would give me books so that you can try to see how you apply them to the measures you are taking on the animal experiments. So he opened in my brain the whole curiosity of using quantitative analysis in ways beyond the traditional very simplistic statistical methods that we use. And this is something that now is fundamental for the type of work”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “The box completely, and that resonated totally with me. And he was interested at that time. His research was on trying to understand what were the mechanisms that account for the tolerance to opioids and the mechanisms that account for the withdrawal that emerges when someone becomes physically dependent to opioids. And his idea was that if you have these models and you could understand them, then you would be able to develop an opioid medication that would not be addictive, that would not produce tolerance, that would not produce withdrawal. But the models that he was using and the way that he was challenging me, which was very, very quantitative, he was always trying to figure out a way of quantifying behavior in animals that then could be used to predict the responses to drugs.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “And he was a physician and a PhD in pharmacology who had gone to Michigan University for his PhD. I ended up with him because as a medical student, I knew I wanted to do research. And so I started to volunteer with actually one of the major scientists in Mexico, Tamagio, who was doing work on autopsies and tissue pathologies. He was a pathologist. And he said, Nora, do you like behavior? You like drugs. You like the brain. Let me introduce you to someone that will basically have better background than mine. And so he introduced me to Julian Bill. And immediately I hit it off with Julian. And what intrigued me so much about Julian was that he thought outside”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “In objective ways, where there was not that subjective element where things can creep in and rapidly be influenced by one person's perspective, this is me speculating about why my father was so driven into the science. It may just be that he loved science because it's a fantastic field. Science is basically you're moving your curiosity to try to understand the world and they pay you for it. So I am making a speculative leap because I have thought about it, like you sort of asked me, but at the same time I have to recognize that it may also just be that he loved science because he's a curious, very curious person.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “Provides it because science tends to be very black and white. I mean, it's not really black and white. I mean, the physical sciences, mathematical sciences are black and white. Biology is more graded. But you can extract objective information that is reproducible. And I think that gives you a sense of solidity. And I think that this may be one of the reasons why my father was so attracted to science. And what I can tell you, he was very categorical. He did not want any one of his daughters to go into politics. He was black and white. No politics. And his perspective was that the family already had paid a very, very big price of politics. And so he really didn't want to. So in that respect, of course, science offered these ideal profession where people were driven by looking and trying to understand the truth of things.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “His mother to take basically only allowed him to take one of the two children, and so the mother selected the one that was younger, which was my father. And then when he loses the mother, he goes and lives with an uncle. And that uncle is killed by Stalin while in Paris. And then he ends up Wetrosky and Troski's assassinated. And basically my father is coming into the house when Mercader, who's the killer, is inside and he hears him don't let Sieva, which is the name of my father, see me. So he has the clarity of mind to recognize he doesn't want my father to see him all covering blood. So if you think about what it must mean for a child to go, all of these experiences, I think you have to develop a mechanism of protection. And in that respect, my view is that science...”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “I think a lot about it because my father, you know, when we were growing up, he could never ever speak about Trotsky and we were not allowed to ask questions because it was felt that it was just too painful for him to speak up. And the first time he did an interview about his experience with Trosky was when I was, I think I must have been 17 years of age or 16 years of age. And that was a turning point for him where he started to speak about it. And I think my father, an extraordinary individual, I mean with an amazing resilience, was using certain mechanisms to try to deal with the suffering. I mean, his mother committed suicide when he was living with her. I mean, he lost his father to a concentration camp. His sister was left behind in Russia because Stalin did not allow”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “Someone improperly treated her. And obviously, as you grow up, you find yourselves in positions where you say, what can I do to help? And that has ultimately led me to take this position of director of the National Institute on Trog Abuse, because I realized that it would put me in a leadership position where I could influence the knowledge that was derived in order to affect policies that would lead to a better opportunity for people suffering from substance use disorder. That's fundamental to me. And that came from my historical background and upbringing.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “We do have a responsibility that each one of us as an individual should be recognized that we are part of a social system where you act as consequences and that your acts can actually significantly improve or negatively affect the life of others. So we, all of us, my three sisters and I have that very much ingrained into our motivation and how we live our lives. And so for me, that has been crucial. So I become very, I mean, particularly, and this is something I've always had, I'm very sensitive to people, the most vulnerable. I mean, it just generates this drive and trying to help. I'm very intolerant of injustices. I've always been. And so it drives me crazy. It activates my amygdala when I see.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “There's no way it doesn't influence you and be aware that as a little girl I was living in that house. And so I was surrounded by not just the knowledge that it was my father's grandfather and I had until I was seven, eight years old, I also, his second wife was living in the house, Natalia, who we became a very dear person to me. So when you are born into a house where you know that you have a relative that did something that was very motivated towards improving the next generations, the chances that next generations had that they were committed to a more just and fair society, that is ingrained into your brain. And both my parents”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “To Russia to study, and I was given a scholarship, and my father really freak out. And at that point is when I was basically made aware and said, Nora, you cannot do that. You're also going to be putting your father in a very awkward position because he can be blackmailed. And there is this curse that Stalin had said that he would persecute up to the third generation. And that's how I ended up in Mexico City, where I went to school. until I did my training in psychiatry.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “Which would have ended with my father, but it would have ended with us, actually, the third generation is us. And they tried to kill my father, and my father was a little child, but they didn't succeed. Then by my time I was born, which is the third generation, no one has tried to kill me, fortunately. Not from the Stalin era, but I shouldn't be so flippant about it. I mean, it's a very serious issue. And of course it has followed our family. At one point when I was a medical student, I wanted to go”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “coming with her family to look for her two brothers who had come as little children aspar of the asylum to the children that were in Madrid. That's how fortuitous history is. They met, they fell in love, and then they had four daughters. And I was the second one of them. And we actually lived in the house where Trotsky had been killed because my father took the responsibility to ensure that the house where Trotsky live will be left as a museum so that there would be a historical memory of what tyranny can do, the tyranny of Stalin and basically the extermination of all of his enemies, which of course Trotsky was one of his main ones. And he had basically aimed to destroy the family of Trosky up to the third generation.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “Madrid was going to be bombarded by the Franco forces, so the government of Mexico, in an attempt to save those children, offer asylum to the children to be brought from Madrid into Mexico at the care of the Mexican government. And so that's how the two families came together. My father came to Mexico as an orphan basically had taken the responsibility of him. His mother had committed suicide. His father had been sent to a concentration camp by Stalin. And so the only relative that he had was Trotsky. So he came to Mexico because that was his family. And he was twelve years old when he came to Mexico. And that's how he ended up in Mexico. My mother came to Mexico when she was 18 years of age.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “I was born in Mexico City. I went to medical school in Mexico City, and it was until I was finishing medical school that I left Mexico to go to Paris, then to the jungle, and then I went to New York for my training in psychiatry. And the reason why actually I ultimately was born in Mexico City, it's interesting, it's driven by, I always say, the belligerent nature of men because my father is the grandson of Leon Troski and the only place that gave political asylum to Leon Trosky was Mexico. And my mother, who was born in Madrid, ended up in Mexico because also Mexico was the place that gave asylum to the children of the people that were fighting against Franco in Madrid.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “So I wanted to be able to do that right. And based on the time limits that we have at school, it was going to be impossible. We would be able to each one of us dissect, for example, one extremity. And so I asked my father if I could bring a corpse that I could do autopsy. And my father had a laboratory in the house. So he said, yes. But then my mother and my sisters rebel. And I said, if Nora brings a corpse into the house for her anatomy classes, then we're leaving the house. That was very categorical. I lost. That's it, no more.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “Absolutely. And first of all, I'm sorry for the loss of your family, relatives, and your friend. I mean, it is very tragic, and that's why, I mean, I'm so devoted to the whole subject, because it shouldn't be. I mean, people shouldn't be dying from addictions, and yet they do. And there are many factors that if we could change, then we wouldn't be losing these lives. So then let me jump into the question that you call left side or right-sided. My father is a scientist. And so he was obsessed of having his daughter Skitty and have a son. So he was obsessed of having the daughters going to science. And I was the one that I have another sister who was then in high school, but I was.”

    2023-05-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #673: Dr. Nora Volkow — Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT