Neuropharmacology & Psychopharmacology

BIOGRAPHY

Rainer Spanagel studied biology at the Universities of Tübingen and Munich and pursued his early training in behavioural pharmacology and neurochemistry at the Max Planck Institute in Martinsried. During his PhD work, he discovered the regulation of the brain reinforcement system by the endogenous opioid system. This work was critical for understanding reward processing and has become a citation classic. In 1990, he moved to the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich to apply his accumulated knowledge to addiction research. In 1995, he became head of the alcohol research group there and was awarded a lectureship in Pharmacology and Toxicology. In the beginning of 2000, he relocated to the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, a leading European institution for biological psychiatry, to become director of the Department of Psychopharmacology.

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
His primary research interests are in addiction research


EDUCATION:
PhD in 1991 and worked as a post-doc and junior group leader at the Max-Planck-Institute of Neuropharmacology in Martinsried and Psychiatry in Munich


AWARDS:
INVEST Award, 1995;
Wilhelm Feuerlein Research Award in 1998;
Sir Hans Krebs Award, 2003;
Albrecht-Ludwig-Berblinger Award, 2005