Before coming to UCLA for residency training in Psychiatry, Dr. Cook was a co-founder of a biomedical devices company, OsteoDyne, Inc., and was co-inventor of an exercise-based method to strengthen skeletal bone with a former mentor, Dr. C. Andrew L. Bassett. He left that company to pursue interests in the brain and behavior.
During his time at UCLA, Dr. Cook has served as a consultant to numerous pharmaceutical companies, helping them recognize important discoveries in the neurosciences and translate them to medications that will improve mental health.
Dr. Cook speaks widely to physicians and other mental health care providers about state-of-the-art treatments for mental illnesses. He has given invited lectures in Europe as well as in the United States.
He has also advised corporations and nonprofit groups on the use of the internet in health care and education, and has consulted for the entertainment industry on story and character development where the clinical neurosciences may be key (e.g., David E. Kelley Productions, C|W Productions).
Dr. Cook founded the Ainsworth Cook Group, LLC, and Gyrus Internet, to allow him to mobilize advances in information technology in support of his educational and research interests.