Alex Korb

The Upward Spiral, issued by New Harbinger in 2015, makes a narrow claim and makes it carefully. Low mood settles into self-reinforcing loops between particular brain circuits, and small deliberate changes to sleep, exercise, gratitude, decision making and contact with other people can turn those loops the other way. Alex Korb came to the subject from the laboratory rather than the consulting room. He read neuroscience at Brown, finishing in 2002, took a doctorate in neuroscience at UCLA in 2010, and stayed at the Semel Institute as a postdoctoral researcher working on focused ultrasound neuromodulation and on predicting which patients respond to antidepressants. He holds an adjunct assistant professorship in UCLA's department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, with a dozen or more peer-reviewed papers behind him. He is a neuroscientist, not a physician and not a licensed clinician, and the book anchors a paid practice: he sells one-to-one and corporate coaching as the Upward Spiral Method, plus consulting and paid speaking. He also writes the Prefrontal Nudity blog for Psychology Today.