Howard Fields (neuroscientist)

Howard L. Fields
Born(1939-12-12)December 12, 1939
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedMay 1, 2026(2026-05-01) (aged 86)
Berkeley, California, U.S.
Education
Occupations
  • Neuroscientist
  • Neurologist
EmployerUniversity of California San Francisco
Known forNeurobiology
TitleNeuroscientist
SpouseCarol Margaret Fields

Howard Lincoln Fields (December 12, 1939 - May 1, 2026) was an American neuroscientist and clinical neurologist with expertise in pain and in opioid pharmacology. He was professor of neurology and physiology emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Biography

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1939, Fields studied physiology at the University of Chicago (BS 1960). In 1965–1966, he received an MD and PhD in neuroscience from Stanford University. He was a graduate student of Donald Kennedy, future President of Stanford University. Fields also held the distinction of being the first person awarded a Neuroscience PhD from Stanford. He completed a medical internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York, then spent three years (1967-1970) as a research neurologist at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. From 1970-1972, Fields trained at the Harvard neurology program at Boston City Hospital, in Massachusetts. He then joined the faculty of the Neurology and Physiology Departments at the University of California San Francisco where he collaborated with other neuroscientists including Jon Levine and Allan Basbaum.

Research

Fields' research on the nervous system ranged from pain, opioid pharmacology and substance abuse to endogenous opioids in pain relief and reward. Fields was one of the UCSF pain management center founders. With his UCSF colleagues, Fields made major contributions to understanding the neurobiology of pain, opioid analgesia and opioid reward, and to the mechanistic understanding and treatment of neuropathic pain. In addition to discovering and characterizing the inhibitory and excitatory descending brainstem mechanisms that regulate pain, Fields' research identified how activity of nucleus accumbens neurons contributes to motivated behavior for natural and drug rewards. His group with Allan Basbaum described a top-down pain modulating circuit that mediates opioid analgesia and exerts bidirectional control of pain. His group was the first to establish the clinical effectiveness of opioids for neuropathic pain. They also discovered that topical lidocaine was effective to reduce the pain of post-herpetic neuralgia. In other discoveries, Fields with Jon Levine discovered that placebo analgesia was mediated by endogenous opioids by demonstrating that it is blocked by the opioid antagonist naloxone. Later work by Fields and his colleagues led to the discovery of neural mechanisms in the midbrain and striatum that contribute to opioid reward.

Fields’ specialties included neurology, neuropharmacology and neuroscience.

Awards and honors

Publications

References

  1. ↑ "Neurotree - Howard L. Fields". neurotree.org. Retrieved 2023-03-08.
  2. ↑ "Alumni". Neurosciences PhD Program (in Samoan). Retrieved 2023-03-08.
  3. ↑ Fields, H L; Basbaum, A I (1978). "Brainstem Control of Spinal Pain-Transmission Neurons". Annual Review of Physiology. 40 (1): 193–221. doi:10.1146/annurev.ph.40.030178.001245. ISSN 0066-4278. PMID 205165.
  4. ↑ Fields, Howard (2004). "State-dependent opioid control of pain". Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 5 (7): 565–575. doi:10.1038/nrn1431. ISSN 1471-003X. PMID 15208698. S2CID 12473867.
  5. ↑ "Intravenous Lidocaine and Morphine for Post-Herpetic Neuralgia". Topics in Pain Management. 8 (4): 1024–1028. 1991. doi:10.1097/00587875-199211000-00002. ISSN 0882-5645. S2CID 220555145.
  6. ↑ Rowbotham, Michael C.; Fields, Howard L. (1994). "Topical lidocaine reduces pain in post-herpetic neuralgia". Pain. 37 (2): 246–253. doi:10.1016/0304-3959(89)90216-9. ISSN 0304-3959. PMID 2478945. S2CID 1187307.
  7. ↑ LEVINE, JON D.; GORDON, NEWTON C.; FIELDS, HOWARD L. (1979). "Naloxone dose dependently produces analgesia and hyperalgesia in postoperative pain". Nature. 278 (5706): 740–741. Bibcode:1979Natur.278..740L. doi:10.1038/278740a0. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 219371. S2CID 4272818.
  8. ↑ Levine, JonD.; Gordon, NewtonC.; Fields, HowardL. (1978-09-23). "The Mechanism of Placebo Analgesia". The Lancet. Originally published as Volume 2, Issue 8091. 312 (8091): 654–657. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(78)92762-9. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 80579. S2CID 45403755.
  9. ↑ Fields, Howard L.; Hjelmstad, Gregory O.; Margolis, Elyssa B.; Nicola, Saleem M. (2007). "Ventral Tegmental Area Neurons in Learned Appetitive Behavior and Positive Reinforcement". Annual Review of Neuroscience. 30 (1): 289–316. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.30.051606.094341. ISSN 0147-006X. PMID 17376009.
  10. ↑ Fields, Howard L.; Margolis, Elyssa B. (2015). "Understanding opioid reward". Trends in Neurosciences. 38 (4): 217–225. doi:10.1016/j.tins.2015.01.002. ISSN 0166-2236. PMC 4385443. PMID 25637939.