Howard Fields

Professor, Neurology Professor in Residence, Physiology Director, Wheeler Center for Neurobiology of Addiction Core Member, UCB/UCSF Graduate Group in Bioengineering 5858 Horton St. #200 mailcode: 510 985 3971 fax: (510) 524-0933 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it http://www.ucsf.edu/neurosc/faculty/neuro_fields.html Membership effective July 2000

Research Interests

Integrative neuroscience and neuropharmacology of pain and drug addiction.

Research Summary

My research group studies the neurobiology of decision making.  We study how neuronal circuits process and encode information related to costs and benefits of different behavioral options.  We are focused on a family of receptors and endogenous ligands called opioids which have profound actions on the neural circuits that modulate pain and produce positive reinforcement (i.e. underlie addiction). There are several distinct opioids: endorphins, enkephalins, dynorphins and endomorphins. Our goal is to determine how each of these endogenous opioids and their receptors contribute to pain modulation and to addictive behaviors. We study opioid pharmacology using both behavioral pharmacology and electrophysiology in awake and intact anestheized rodents. We also use in vitro electrophysiology in the same brain regions to identify the synapic mechanisms that control neuron firing and consequently behavior. We also use immunocytochemical and tract tracing methods to answer questions of circuitry.

Selected Publications

Basbaum, A.I., Clanton, C.H., FIELDS, H.L.  Opiate and stimulus-produced analgesia:  functional anatomy of a medullospinal pathway.  Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 73:4685-4688, 1976.

Levine, J.D., Gordon, N.C., FIELDS, H.L.  The mechanism of placebo analgesia.  Lancet (September 23):654-657, 1978.

FIELDS, H.L., Emson, P.C., Leigh, B.K., Gilbert, R.F.T., Iversen, L.L.  Multiple opiate receptor sites on primary afferent fibres.  Nature 284:351-353, 1980.

FIELDS, H.L., Vanegas, H., Hentall, I.D., Zorman, G.  Evidence that disinhibition of brainstem neurones contributes to morphine analgesia.  Nature 306:684-686, 1983.

Taha, S., FIELDS, H.L.  Encoding of palatability and appetitive behaviors by distinct neuronal populations in  the nucleus accumbens. J. Neuroscience, 25:1193-202, 2005.

Margolis, E.B., Lock, H., Chefer, V., Shippenberg, T., Hjelmstad, G.O., FIELDS, H.L.   Kappa opioids selectively control dopaminergic neurons projecting to the prefrontal cortex. PNAS, 103: 2938-2942, 2006.