Ronald L. Cowan, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Radiology
Director, Psychiatric Neuroimaging Program
Ronald.L.Cowan@Vanderbilt.edu
www.cowanlab.com
Dr.Ronald Cowan has been a member of the faculty since 2002. His research focuses on the neurobiology of reward circuitry and associated clinical conditions including drug addiction and obesity.
Education
M.D., Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Ph.D., University of Tennessee Health Science Center
B.S., Christian Brothers University
Postgraduate Training
Intern in Internal Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
Resident in Adult Psychiatry, McLean Hospital
Areas of Clinical Expertise
Consultation Liaison Psychiatry
Research interests
Reward circuitry, Monoamine circuitry, Neuroimaging, Neurophysiology
Representative publications
1. Cowan RL (2006) Challenges for Structural Neuroimaging Research in Human MDMA Users: A Review. In Press, Psychopharmacology.
2. Cowan RL, Haga E, Frederick B deB, Dietrich MS, Vimal RLP, Lukas SE,Renshaw PF (2006) MDMA use is associated with increased spatial BOLD fMRI visual cortex activation in human MDMA users. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 84, 219-228.
3. Schiffer F, Mottaghy FM, Vimal RLP, Renshaw PF, Cowan RL, Pascual-Leone A, Teicher M, Valente E, Rohan M (2004) Lateral Visual Field Stimulation Reveals Extrastriate Cortical Activation in the Contralateral Hemisphere: A BOLD fMRI Study. Psychiatry Research 30, 1-9.
4. Cowan RL, IKLyoo, SW Kong, SM Sung, E Haga, SE Lukas, PF Renshaw (2003) Reduced Focal Cortical Gray Matter Density in Human MDMA (Ecstasy) Users: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 72, 225-235.
5.Cowan RL, Frederick B de B, Rainey M, Levin JM, Maas LC., Bang J,Hennen J, Lukas SE, and Renshaw PF (2000) Sex Differences in Response to Red and Blue Light in Human Primary Visual Cortex: A BOLD fMRI Study. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 100, 129-138.
