Abbas Haghparast was born in Karbala, Iraq, in 1967 with Iranian nationality. He received the BSc and MSc degrees in Medical Physiology from the Kerman University of Medical Science (KUMS), Kerman, Iran, in 1989 and 1993. He has performed his duties as an Instructor at the Department of Physiology, KUMS, since 1993. He received a Ph.D. degree in Medical Physiology from Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran, in 1999. After completing his Ph.D., he moved to the Neuroscience Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBMU) in Tehran, where he established the first laboratory dedicated to “Neuromodulation of Pain and Addictive Behaviors”. Since 2015, he has been a Professor and Research Director of the Unit for Neuromodulation of Pain & Addictive Behaviors at the Neuroscience Research Center, SBMU.
He is the author of 323 articles in national and international journals (h-index: 36 in Google scholar and 29 in Scopus). In May 2021, he was included in the ESI Top 1% researchers list. His research interests include the interrelationship of the Reward- Pain-Stress circuits and the involvement of dopaminergic and orexinergic systems in sub-cortical areas such as NAc, VTA, LH, LC, and Hippocampus with behavioral, electrophysiological, and molecular (signaling pathways) approaches.
He is one of the editorial board members of several National/Scopus and OA International Journals such as Addiction Neuroscience, Elsevier, and guest section editor of the Current Addiction Reports, Springer. He is now head of the central library of SBMU. Since 2013, he has also been secretary-general of the Iranian Neuroscience Society. IBRO also selected him as one of the IBRO Asian Pacific Regional Committee (APRC) council members for a period of three years, starting from January 2022.
Prof. Abbas Haghparast was also invited as an alumnus lecturer (2011) at the alumni special symposium, 8th IBRO World Congress of Neuroscience, Florence, Italy. He has received many awards, including the Top Researcher Award (2017, 2013, 2010, and 2007) in Basic Medical Sciences at the 18th, 14th, 11th, and 8th Research Festival, respectively, and outstanding book translator (2009) at the 10th Research Festival, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.