Lauren Dobbs, Ph.D.

Lauren Dobbs is an assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience at The University of Texas at Austin and the Department of Neurology at Dell Medical School.

Dobbs initially became inspired to study the neurobiology of addiction while working with people who use drugs as a post-baccalaureate clinical research assistant at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She went on to pursue graduate training in the behavioral pharmacology of drug reward and received a doctorate in behavioral neuroscience from Oregon Health and Science University. Her subsequent postdoctoral training at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism involved examining the neural circuits underlying drug-related behaviors.

Dobbs’ laboratory takes a systems-level approach to identify the neural substrates, circuits and behavioral motivations driving the co-misuse of addictive drugs. Her research examines pairs of commonly co-misused drugs to determine how they interact at the behavioral, molecular and synaptic levels to drive their synergistic intake when co-misused. Her work has received multiple awards, including a 2014 Fellow Award for Research Excellence from the National Institutes of Health and the 2017 Benedict J. Latteri Memorial Award for Excellence in Scientific Publication from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.