Don C. Cooper

Institute for Behavioral Genetics, Dept. Psychology and Neuroscience; Member of the Center for Neuroscience

Institute for Behavioral Genetics, Campus Box 

University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO 80303

email: D.Cooper@Colorado.EDU
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Don Cooper, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. He received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Chicago Medical School in 2000. He moved to Northwestern University in the Dept of Neurobiology and Physiology for postdoctoral training until 2004. In 2004, he moved to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, as an Assistant Professor in the Dept of Psychiatry. In 2009, he moved to the University of Colorado, Institute for Behavioral Genetics. Dr. Cooper is the recipient of an NIH career award to investigate gene expression in cocaine addiction. His laboratory is funded by the NIH to study Ecstasy and cocaine in the brain memory and reward system. He is a member of a number of professional organizations in neuroscience. He has served as an ad hoc member of a number of committees for the National Institutes of Health and chair of the National Academy of Science Kavli US/Japan Frontiers program. He has also served as peer reviewer for numerous journals.
The long-term goals of Dr. Cooper’s laboratory are to understand information processing in the brain motivation/reward memory circuitry and characterize the adaptations and impaired neural memory mechanisms associated with depression, addiction and schizophrenia.
Dr. Cooper’s neurophysiology laboratory combines behavioral, molecular genetic and detailed electrophysiological analysis to understand how psychostimulant drugs alter neuronal impulse activity leading to short and long-term changes in communication within mesolimbic dopamine system. Their approach to this problem utilizes state-of-the-art technology (e.g. DNA microarrays, viral gene transduction, infrared and fluorescence visualized patch-clamp physiology and intravenous drug self-administration) and complementary levels of analysis (e.g. drug self-administration, in vivo and in vitro physiology, molecular techniques and computer simulation) in order to gain insight into how this system functions under normal and pathological conditions.

Selected Publications: