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 George F. Koob, Ph.D., The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
George F. Koob, Ph.D., is a Professor and Chair of the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders at The Scripps Research Institute and Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, and Adjunct Professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Koob received his Bachelor of Science degree from Pennsylvania State University and his Ph.D. in Behavioral Physiology from The Johns Hopkins University. An authority on addiction and stress, Dr. Koob has published over 670 scientific papers and has received continuous funding for his research from the National Institutes of Health, including the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). He is Director of the NIAAA Alcohol Research Center at The Scripps Research Institute, Consortium Coordinator for NIAAA's multi-center Integrative Neuroscience Initiative on Alcoholism, and Co-Director of the Pearson Center for Alcoholism and Addiction Research. Dr. Koob is Editor-in-Chief USA for the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior and Editor-in-Chief for Journal of Addiction Medicine. He won the Daniel Efron Award for excellence in research from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, was honored as a Highly Cited Researcher from the Institute for Scientific Information, was presented with the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Research Society on Alcoholism, and won the Mark Keller Award from NIAAA. He received an honorary doctorate from Pennsylvania State University in 2009.
Dr. Koob's research interests have been directed at the neurobiology of emotion, with a focus on the theoretical constructs of reward and stress. He has made contributions to our understanding of the anatomical connections of the emotional systems and the neurochemistry of emotional function. Dr. Koob has identified afferent and efferent connections of the basal forebrain (extended amygdala) in the region of the nucleus accumbens, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and central nucleus of the amygdala in motor activation, reinforcement mechanisms, behavioral responses to stress, drug self-administration, and the neuroadaptation associated with drug dependence.
Dr. Koob also is one of the world’s authorities on the neurobiology of drug addiction. He has contributed to our understanding of the neurocircuitry associated with the acute reinforcing effects of drugs of abuse and more recently on the neuroadaptations of these reward circuits associated with the transition to dependence. He has validated key animal models for dependence associated with drugs of abuse and has begun to explore a key role of anti-reward systems in the development of dependence.
Dr. Koob's work with the neurobiology of stress includes the characterization of behavioral functions in the central nervous system for catecholamines, opioid peptides, and corticotropin-releasing factor. Corticotropin-releasing factor, in addition to its classical hormonal functions in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, is also located in extrahypothalamic brain structures and may have an important role in brain emotional function. Recent use of specific corticotropin-releasing factor antagonists suggests that endogenous brain corticotropin-releasing factor may be involved in specific behavioral responses to stress, the psychopathology of anxiety and affective disorders, and drug addiction. Dr. Koob also has characterized functional roles for other stress-related neurotransmitters/neuroregulators such as norepinephrine, vasopressin, hypocretin (orexin), neuropeptide Y, and neuroactive steroids.
 Michel Le Moal, M.D., Ph.D, Université Bordeaux and INSERM, France
Michel Le Moal, M.D., Ph.D, earned his degrees from the University of Bordeaux and University of Grenoble. He was a student at the French school for military physicians and surgeons and then as a navy practitioner he pursued in parallel, his internship and residency in internal medicine, neurology and psychiatry at the Bordeaux Medical School (1954-1968). He earned his medical degree in 1964 and his certification as a child neuropsychiatrist in 1968. He also earned a masters degree in philosophy and psychology (1961, University of Grenoble and Bordeaux) and a masters degree in biological sciences (1962, University of Bordeaux) and finally a Doctorate of Science in 1974 (University of Bordeaux). His academic career developed entirely in Bordeaux, first in child neuropsychiatry (medical school) then in Neuroscience as assistant, associate, full professor (from 1964 to 2004). He was the chairman of the Neurosciences Department (1976-2004), a member of the University Institute of France, and chair of experimental psychopathology. He has been a visiting associate and research fellow at the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH, Pasadena) (1974-1977, Pr J. Olds), The Salk Institute, San Diego (1978-1984, Pr F. E. Bloom, and The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego (1984- present) (Pr F. E. Bloom and Pr G. F. Koob). His research includes the neurobiological bases of stress, addiction, and of adaptive behaviors in general using animal models of psychopathology and experimental psychopathology. He created the François Magendie Neuroscience Institute (1996) in Bordeaux and is still a member of this institution. He is emeritus Professor (University of Bordeaux) and Member of the French Academy of Sciences.
 Richard F. Thompson, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Richard F. Thompson is Keck Professor of Psychology and Biological Sciences at the University of Southern California and was founding Director of the Neuroscience Program at USC (1989-2001). Prior to this he held tenured professorships at the University of Oregon Medical School; University of California, Irvine; Harvard and Stanford. He received his BA degree at Reed College in Portland, OR, his BS and Ph.D. degrees in at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and did postdoctoral research in Neurophysiology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine (with Clinton Woolsey) and the University of Göteburg School of Medicine in Sweden (with Anders Ludberg). His research has focused on neuronal substrates of learning and memory in the mammalian brain; most notably, he (1) elucidated the defining behavioral properties of habituation and sensitization and analyzed the underlying brain processes, and (2) localized and analyzed the essential memory trace for a basic form of association learning and memory in the mammalian brain (to a region in the cerebellum). He has written several texts, published some 470 research papers to date and has received many honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He was awarded the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, the Warren Medal from the Society of Experimental Psychologists and the Karl Spencer Lashley Award from the American Philosophical Society.
George Koob
Michel Le Moal
Richard Thompson
Elizabeth Adkins-Regan
Tracy L Bale
Rick Bevins
Bob Blanchard
Robert Dantzer
Francis Eustache
Allan Hobson
Andre Nieoullon
Russ Poldrack
Marc Potenza
Tracey Tracey
David Stephens
Bernard Thierry
Friedbert Weiss
Diana Woodruff-Pak
Jeansok Kim |
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