Joshua Lile, Ph.D.
Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
College of Medicine
Department of Psychology
College of Arts & Sciences
University of Kentucky
465 E High Street, Suite 204B
Lexington, KY 40507
Email: jalile2@uky.edu

Dr. Joshua Lile received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Wake Forest University in 2002. He is currently a Tenured Professor in the Departments of Behavioral Science, Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Kentucky. His research is focused on the neurobiological and environmental bases of drug use disorders and the development of interventions. A primary research interest is in cannabis-use disorder. One ongoing clinical project is evaluating voltage-dependent calcium channel ligands as potential medications using outpatient maintenance procedures to determine pharmacotherapy effects on cannabis self-administration in the laboratory and in the natural environment. A second active area of research for Dr. Lile is the development of pharmacotherapies for the treatment of stimulant use disorders and understanding mechanisms of stimulant reinforcement, and he is collaborating on several human laboratory studies and clinical trials to this end. He is also the PI on an MPI project that uses a reinforcement learning framework, neuroscience methods and translational procedures in rats and humans to determine the neurobehavioral basis of maladaptive cocaine choice. A recent MPI project is using similar methods to determine the neurobehavioral basis of withdrawal motivated disordered opioid choice. A third, and relatively new, area of research for Dr. Lile relates to alcohol use disorder. He is collaborating on two funded projects, one that is screening n-acetylcysteine as a medication for alcohol use disorder, and another that is testing a combination of drugs to target multiple monoamine systems that are dysregulated in alcohol use disorder.