Paul Phillips Receives Jacob P. Waletzky Award
WASHINGTON, DC — The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) will award Paul Phillips, PhD, of the University of Washington, with the Jacob P. Waletzky Award. Established in 2003 and supported by the Waletzky family, the $25,000 award is given to a scientist who has conducted research or plans to conduct research in the area of substance abuse and the brain and nervous system. The prize will be presented at Neuroscience 2014, SfN’s annual meeting and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.
“SfN congratulates Dr. Phillips for receiving this prestigious award,” SfN President Carol Mason said. “His research has illuminated the neurochemical basis of motivated behaviors and the brain changes that underlie diseases like substance abuse.”
In innovative studies using state-of-the-art recording methods and sophisticated animal models, Phillips has uncovered ways in which substances of abuse alter the dopamine system and how these changes affect behavior. Specifically, Phillips’ studies have identified how changes in the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the striatum — a brain region implicated in regulating responses to rewarding and aversive stimuli — impact drug-seeking and decision-making behaviors.
Phillips earned his PhD from the University of London and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is currently an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and pharmacology at the University of Washington.
The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is an organization of nearly 40,000 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system. More information about the brain can be found at BrainFacts.org, a public information initiative of The Kavli Foundation, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, and SfN.
