Khaled Moussawi, MD, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
Dr. Khaled Moussawi is the Howard L. Fields Endowed Chair in Pharmacology of Addiction and an Associate Professor in Residence in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He directs the Translational Neuropsychiatry Through Neuromodulation (TN²) laboratory which focuses on understanding and treating substance use disorders through advanced neuromodulation techniques. Dr. Moussawi earned his MD, PhD from the Medical University of South Carolina, where he investigated the neurobiology and circuitry underlying relapse to drug seeking in rodent models of addiction. He subsequently completed his Neurology residency at the MGH BWH Partners Neurology Program and a Neuropsychiatry fellowship at a joint program between Johns Hopkins and the NIH. Following his fellowship, Dr. Moussawi joined the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, where he led preclinical and clinical research studies aimed at understanding relapse vulnerability and exploring neuromodulation-based treatments for substance use disorders. At UCSF, the TN² lab combines neuroscientific discovery with innovative neuromodulation strategies such as Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (LIFU), Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), and brain mapping with stereoencephalography (sEEG) to investigate and treat drug and alcohol addiction. The lab’s primary goals are to better understand the circuit dysfunctions underlying the core features of addiction in the human brain, identify neural biomarkers of craving and drug-seeking behaviors, and leverage these findings to develop personalized, evidence-based neuromodulation treatments for addiction.