2022 ACCP Annual Meeting Invited Keynote
Nora D. Volkow, MD, Director, National Inst on Drug Abuse, National Inst of Health
Presentation Title: Advances in Our Understanding of the Effects of Drugs & Addiction
ACCP is pleased to announce that its 2022 Invited Keynote is Nora D. Volkow, MD, Director of the National Inst on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Inst of Health. NIDA is the world’s largest funder of research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. Dr. Volkow's work has been instrumental in demonstrating that drug addiction is a brain disorder. As a research psychiatrist, Dr. Volkow pioneered the use of brain imaging to investigate how substance use affects brain functions. In particular, her studies have documented that changes in the dopamine system affect the functions of frontal brain regions involved with reward and self-control in addiction. She has also made important contributions to the neurobiology of obesity, ADHD and aging.
Dr. Volkow was born in Mexico and earned her medical degree from the National Univ of Mexico in Mexico City, where she received the Robins Award for best medical student of her generation. Her psychiatric residency was at New York Univ, where she earned a Laughlin Fellowship from The American Coll of Psychiatrists as one of 10 outstanding psychiatric residents in the United States. Much of her professional career was spent at the Dept of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, where she held several leadership positions including Director of Nuclear Medicine, Chairman of the Medical Dept and Associate Director for Life Sciences. Dr. Volkow was also a professor in the Dept of Psychiatry and Associate Dean of the Medical School at The State Univ of New York at Stony Brook. Dr. Volkow has published more than 800 peer-reviewed articles, written more than 100 book chapters, manuscripts and articles, co-edited "Neuroscience in the 21st Century" and edited four books on brain imaging for mental and addictive disorders.