Dr. Emil F. Coccaro

Emil F. Coccaro, M.D. is currently the George T. Harding, M.D., III Endowed Professor of Psychiatry at The Ohio State University in its College of Medicine. He received his M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine and his training in Psychiatry from the Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City. Dr Coccaro had academic appointments at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine (1983-1989), the Medical College of Pennsylvania/Hanemann College of Medicine (1989-1999), and The University of Chicago (1999-2021), where he was also the Chair of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience (2004-2016). He is a leading expert in the neurobiology of aggression and impulsivity. His seminal contributions to the field include studies into the roles of serotonin (as well as the role of chronic inflammation) in impulsive aggression. In addition, he developed the methodology to test the efficacy of anti-aggressive compounds in clinical trials starting with his positive clinical trial of fluoxetine in impulsive aggressive individuals. He also developed the DSM-5 criteria for Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) as well as several rating measures currently used in human studies of aggression, including the Life History of Aggression (LHA) and the Overt Aggression Scale Modified for Outpatient Use (OAS-M), among others.