Geoffrey Schoenbaum

Geoffrey Schoenbaum is an Adjunct Professor and Distinguished Investigator at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), NIH. He leads the Cellular and Neurocomputational Systems Branch and the Behavioral Neurophysiology Neuroscience Section. His work focuses on neural circuits underlying associative learning, decision making, and addiction, using rat models to study brain regions like the orbitofrontal cortex and striatum. Schoenbaum employs techniques such as single-unit recording and optogenetics to explore how neural circuits adapt in neuropsychiatric disorders like addiction.

Education: M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1996, 1994), postdoctoral training at UNC and Johns Hopkins (advisor: Michela Gallagher).

Research Interests: His lab investigates how drug use alters neural circuits, particularly the orbitofrontal cortex’s role in schema formation and decision-making deficits. Recent studies highlight dopamine’s role in prediction errors and the impact of cocaine on neural ensemble coding.

Publications: Over 200 peer-reviewed articles, with recent work emphasizing dopamine signaling, hippocampal-orbitofrontal interactions, and addiction mechanisms. Key themes include model-based inference, prediction errors, and neural plasticity in addiction.

Awards & Grants: NIH intramural funding supports his research on addiction neuroscience. His lab collaborates widely, advancing translational studies linking neural circuits to behavioral outcomes.

Labs: Leads the Schoenbaum Lab at NIDA IRP, focusing on experimental behavioral neuroscience and computational modeling.