This thesis aims to clearly describe the cognitive radio and its components and operations. Moreover, it aims on describing the expected outcome from the most common techniques that are proposed for use in cognitive radios. In addition, it describes the basic principles of game theory and some simple game models that can be used to analyze the efficiency of the optimization algorithms. Furthermore, it investigates the use of load balancing algorithm and genetic algorithm in optimizing the decision making operation in cognitive radios. Matlab software simulations were carried out and the results show the promising benefit of using those two algorithms along with game theory in optimizing the dynamic spectrum allocation process.