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Dr. Adam Smith
Principal Investigator, Professor, Interim Chair
Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Kansas
adamsmith@ku.edu
Adam Smith at KU
PubMedAdam Smith's research focuses on the neurobiological substrates of social behavior and stress.
Education
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Section of Neural Gene Expression, NIMH, 2016
Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Florida State University, 2013
M.A. in Psychology (Psychobiology), University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2009
B.S. in Psychology, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2007
Academic Bio
Dr. Smith received his M.A. in Psychology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2009 and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Florida State University in 2013. His doctoral research discovered a local circuit in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus responsive to environmental stress and social interaction modulated by the neuropeptide oxytocin. Dr. Smith then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health where he determined roles for oxytocin and vasopressin along a hypothalamic-hippocampal circuit which regulates social attention and memory. He joined the University of Kansas in 2016 where he has studied the function of neuropeptide circuits in social behavior and stress. The Smith Lab studies the neuroscience of social attachment by exploring the natural ecology of the socially monogamous prairie vole to identify the mechanisms underlying pair bond formation, social buffering, consoling behavior, and social loss.
