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George F. Koob, Ph.D.

 
 
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Biography

George F. Koob, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders at The Scripps Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry 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.  He began his postdoctoral studies in  neuropharmacology, neurochemistry and psychopharmacology at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.  He continued his postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Susan D. Iversen at the Department of Experimental Psychology and Dr. Leslie Iversen, Medical Research Council Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit at the University of Cambridge, England.  He has maintained an active collaboration since 1977 with Drs. Michel Le Moal and Luis Stinus at the Universite de Bordeaux II.  An authority on addiction and stress, Dr. Koob has published over 620 scientific papers and has received funding for his research from the National Institutes of Health, including the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).  His current research is focused on exploration of the neurobiological basis for the neuroadaptation associated with drug dependence and stress.  He is the United States Editor-In-Chief of the journal, Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, Director of the NIAAA Alcohol Research Center at The Scripps Research Institute, and Consortium Coordinator for NIAAA's multi-center Integrative Neuroscience Initiative on Alcoholism.  He won the Daniel Efron Award for Excellence in research from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.  He has been honored as Highly Cited Researcher from the Institute for Scientific Information, and most recently, was presented with the 2002 Distinguished Investigator Award from the Research Society on Alcoholism.  He is a former MERIT awardee from INAAA and a former member of the National Advisory Council for NIDA and NIAAA.
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.  This work includes characterization of the role of catecholamines as well as opioid and other peptidergic systems in behavioral activation and in opiate, stimulant and alcohol reinforcement.

Dr. Koob's work  with the neurobiology of stress includes the characterization of behavioral functions in the central nervous systems for corticotropin-releasing factor.  This hypothalamic releasing factor, which has classical hormonal functions as part of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, also is located in extrahypothalamic brain structures and may be an important component of the function of the limbic system.  Recent use of a specific corticotropin-releasing factor antagonist suggests that endogenous brain corticotropin-releasing factor may be involved in specific behavioral responses to stress, and even in the psychopathology of anxiety and affective disorders.  Dr. Koob also has characterized functional roles for other stress-related neurotransmitters/neuroregulators such as vasopressin, neuropeptide Y, and neuroactive steroids.

The identification of specific neurochemical systems within the basal forebrain system of the extended amygdala involved in motivation has significant theoretical and heuristic impact.  From a theoretical perspective, identification of  a role for dopaminergic, opioidergic, GABAergic, glutamatergic and corticotropin-releasing factor systems in the excessive drug taking provides  neuropharmacologic basis for the allostatic changes hypothesized to drive the process of pathology associated with addiction, anxiety, and depression.  From a heuristic perspective, these findings provide a framework for further molecular, cellular and neurociruit research that will identify the basis for individual differences in vulnerability.

Training:

Dr. Koob has taught an extensive series of undergraduate courses related to brain, behavior, neurochemistry and psychopathology in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego.  These courses include:  "Drugs, Addiction and Mental Disorders"(drugs of abuse and psychotherapeutic drugs), "Drugs and Behavior" (neuropsychiatry of psychoactive drugs), and "Impulse Control Disorders" (social psychology, addiction, and psychiatric concepts of non drug impulse control disorders and pathology).  He also teaches a graduate course in Psychopharmacology and has participated in numerous neuroscience graduate program courses as a lecturer.  He has won six excellence in teaching awards and two Professor of the Year awards at the University of California, San Diego.

At The Scripps Research Institute, Dr. Koob has trained 58 postdoctoral fellows and 10 pre-doctoral fellows in his Neuropharmacology laboratory.  He is Director of a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism post-doctoral training program ("Neuropsychopharmacology:  Multidisciplinary Training").  He has assisted on 24 Ph.D. thesis defense committees throughout the world and serves on the Executive Committee for the Neuroscience Program at the University of California, San Diego.