Dane B. Cook PhD

Dr. Dane B. Cook is a Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a Health Science Specialist/Research Physiologist at the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital. He also holds an adjunct appointment within the War Related Illness and Injury Study Center of the New Jersey VA Health Care System. Dr. Cook is Director of the Exercise Science laboratory at the VA Madison and Co-Director of the Exercise Psychology laboratory at UW–Madison. He is the current sitting Chair and Director of the Marsh Center for Research in Exercise and Movement.

Dr. Cook’s research focuses on the psychobiology (i.e., the relationships between biology and behavior) of exercise with a specific focus on how exercise influences biology, behavior, and brain health. A critical element of this research is the study of pain, fatigue, mental health and cognition in both healthy men and women and those suffering from diseases including Gulf War illness (GWI), myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, Alzheimer’s disease, and post-acute sequelae of sars-coV-2 (PASC/Long-COVID). These studies combine exercise science and brain imaging methods to test the interactions between symptoms, brain structure & function, gut microbiota, and the immune system.

Dr. Cook’s research has received continuous federal funding for the past ~20 years principally from the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institutes of Health, and Department of Defense. His laboratory is currently testing how acute exercise influences autonomic, immune and brain responses during pain and cognitive challenges – a mechanistic study of post exertion malaise in Gulf War Illness (Merit Review Grant Award: I01CX0011329) and the effects of acute exercise on brain inflammation and gut dysbiosis (Merit Review Grant Award: I01CX002616). Dr. Cook’s students study a range of exercise psychology topics, including aging and dementia, chronic pain and fatigue, and post-exertional malaise.