Thomas Kash, PhD, was recognized by the Society for Neuroscience for his “creative research on the neural basis of addiction-related behaviors and its illumination of potential paths forward for understanding and treating the pathological behaviors associated with addiction.”
The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) presented the Jacob P. Waletzky Award to Thomas Kash, PhD, at Neuroscience 2019, SfN’s annual meeting and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health. The award, supported by the Waletzky Award Prize Fund and the Waletzky Family, is given to a young scientist whose independent research has led to significant conceptual and empirical contributions to the understanding of drug addiction. Recipients receive a $25,000 prize.
Kash, the John Andrews Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology at the UNC School of Medicine, is a member of the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, where his lab studies how stress and drugs of abuse affect neuronal circuits and modify addiction-related behaviors. His work takes a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach, combining physiology, pharmacology, optogenetics, and behavioral research. This includes the adaptation of genetically encoded tools for directly observing neuron activity, techniques that he has used to reveal an essential serotonin signaling circuit governing fear and anxiety.
~Excerpt from SOM News article of the same title. Read the full article here…