20 Facts About Huda Akil

Huda Akil is a Syrian-American neuroscientist whose research has contributed to the understanding of the neurobiology of emotions, including pain, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.

Huda Akil previously served as co-director of the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience institute and the University of Michigan node of the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Consortium with her husband, Stanley Watson.

Huda Akil is one of seven leading scientists that comprise the Hope For Depression Research Task Force, whom developed a research plan that combines the currently most advanced knowledge in genetics, epigenetics, molecular biology, electrophysiology, and brain imaging in an effort to accelerate cutting-edge scientific research pertaining to depression and its related mood and emotional disorders.

Huda Akil was inspired to pursue a life of science after reading a book on Marie Curie, the great physicist and Nobel Prize winner, that was given to her by one of the French nuns at the library.

Huda Akil refers to this instance as a "turning point" in her life where she realized that a woman who grew up far away from the centers of knowledge, Great Britain, France, and the United States, could become a great scientist, like Curie.

Huda Akil pursued her undergraduate degree at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

Huda Akil initially took interest in the psychology of language, an interest that was sparked by her father, who was a psychologist.

Huda Akil was accepted to the University of California Los Angeles to pursue her doctoral degree.

Huda Akil's research covers many areas, but is collectively rooted in understanding emotions.

In 1970 Huda Akil joined John Liebeskind, an assistant professor at UCLA who was interested in the neurobiology of pain, and more specifically focused on the neural circuitry of phantom pain, and the idea that phantom pain was not a purely physical phenomenon, but had a psychological role as well.

Huda Akil continued research in the area of opioid peptides and their receptors at the University of Michigan Mental Health Research Institute where she was employed as a basic scientist.

Huda Akil's group combined their research efforts with those of her husband, who was employed at the University of Michigan as a biological psychiatrist.

Furthermore, Huda Akil and Watson were the first to demonstrate that there is an abnormal, decreased sensitivity to glucocorticoid fast feedback that occurs at the level of the brain, rather than the pituitary in depressed patients.

Currently, the Huda Akil Laboratory is working to develop animal models in order to understand the genetic and developmental basis of differences in temperament and the implications of these inborn differences for vulnerability to anxiety, depression and substance abuse.

Huda Akil is a decorated scientist, who has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout her career.

In 1998, Huda Akil was honored with the Sachar Award from Columbia University and the Bristol Myers Squibb Unrestricted Research Funds Award.

Huda Akil accepted the John P McGovern Award in Behavioral Sciences from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006 and in 2007 was the recipient of the Society for Neuroscience Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award and the Patricia Goldman-Rakic Prize for Cognitive Neuroscience.

Huda Akil is a member of Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Huda Akil is currently the co-chair for the Neuroscience Steering Committee at the Foundation for the National Institute of Health and serves on the Council of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Huda Akil describes her approach to parenting her children as going at it "full throttle", keeping her career on track and raising her children simultaneously.