معرفی
Harriet De Wit is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on the subjective, behavioral and physiological effects of drugs of abuse in healthy human volunteers, with particular interest in identifying individual differences and risk factors for excessive drug use.
Education:
- BA in Psychology from University of Calgary (1969)
- PhD in Experimental Psychology from Concordia University (1981)
Dr. de Wit's research examines how drugs affect mood, psychomotor and cognitive performance, and brain activity, with a special focus on conditioned drug effects or cues that influence future drug use. Her work bridges basic science with clinical applications in addiction research, particularly studying reward pathways, impulsivity, and social effects of psychoactive substances including stimulants, opioids, and psychedelics. The de Wit laboratory employs a multidisciplinary approach combining behavioral pharmacology, neuroimaging, and genetic methodologies to understand drug mechanisms in humans.
Her recent publications demonstrate a continued focus on understanding neural and behavioral mechanisms of drug effects, with particular emphasis on MDMA, methamphetamine, LSD, and other psychoactive compounds. These studies employ advanced methodologies including fMRI, EEG, and behavioral pharmacology approaches to examine how these substances affect social cognition, emotional processing, and reward mechanisms, with increasing attention to individual differences and vulnerability factors.
Scientific Awards:
- 1999 Solvay Award for Outstanding Basic Psychopharmacological Research in Affective Disorders
- 2009 Marian W. Fischman Memorial Lectureship Award
- 2016 Distinguished Lecturer, Elizabeth Fitzgerald Sporar Endowment
- 2019 Distinguished Achievement Award, European Behavioural Pharmacology Society
- 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award, Research Society on Alcoholism
- 2020 John F. Lemieux Medal for Distinguished Alumni
Dr. de Wit has been Principal Investigator on numerous NIH-funded research projects spanning several decades, with current funding through 2025 for studies on novel pharmacotherapies for substance use disorders. Her research has significantly contributed to understanding the mechanisms of drug reward, impulsivity, and conditioned drug effects in humans, with over 200 peer-reviewed publications and extensive mentorship of junior researchers in the field.
The de Wit laboratory continues to be a leading center for human psychopharmacology research, investigating the subjective, behavioral and physiological effects of drugs of abuse in healthy human volunteers, with particular emphasis on social and emotional processing, neural mechanisms of drug reward, and individual differences in drug response that contribute to vulnerability to substance use disorders.
