Pearson Center for Alcoholism and Addiction Research

PBS Interview

Bill Moyers interviews George F. Koob, Ph.D. in “Close to Home ”

“I want to understand the neurochemistry and neurobiology of emotional behavior. That's my original interest…”
— George F. Koob, Ph.D.

Read the transcript…

George F. Koob, Ph.D., is a Professor and Chairman of the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders and Director of the Laboratory of Psychopharmacology 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 neurophysiology, 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 a 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 NIAAA and a former member of the National Advisory Councils 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 system 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 a 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 a 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 neurocircuit research that will identify the basis for individual differences in vulnerability.

Training: At The Scripps Research Institute Dr. Koob has trained 54 postdoctoral fellows and 10 predoctoral fellows in his Psychopharmacology laboratory. He is Director of a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism post-doctoral training program (“Neuropsychopharmacology: Multidisciplinary Training”). He has assisted on 29 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.

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