Members of the Center for Neurobiology of Stress fall into one or more of the following categories: (1) investigators at UCLA, VAGLAHS, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, or other campus who are principal or co-principal investigators with peer-reviewed, competitive funding for research in neurovisceral sciences, gastrointestinal disorders, urological disorders, and stress neurobiology, and stress-immune system interactions, particularly related to sex-based differences and whose research directly impacts the goals of the Center; (2) division chiefs in gastroenterology, urology, obstetrics and gynecology, and psychiatry; (3) directors or co-directors of programs or cores, or individuals who have relevant roles within the Center and (4) clinicians who have made significant contributions to the main subject matters of the Center.
If you are interested in becoming a member, please contact Million Mulugeta, DVM, PhD at mmuluget@ucla.edu.
Members are listed in alphabetical order.
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Jennifer Labus, PhD
Director, Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core, G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience; Adjunct Professor, Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. Labus is an Adjunct Professor in the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases in the Department of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is the Director of the Integrative Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core in the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA and the UCLA Microbiome Center.
Dr Labus is an applied statistician with expertise in biostatistics, bioinformatics, treatment-outcome research, pain neuroscience, multimodal brain imaging, microbiome, metabolomics, and multi-omics integrative analysis. Her current research focused is on determining biological markers of disease, including chronic pain, obesity and Alzheimer’s disease. Using state-or-the-art computational, biostatistical, and bioinformatics approaches, she assesses the interaction between various levels of biological data (e.g., microbiome, metabolomics, immune markers, multimodal brain imaging data) with clinical data. The overall goal of her systems-based approach is to identify and target the key regulators of multi-omics-biological disease-interaction networks in order to understand the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms and provide new targets for treatment.
Dr Labus has made seminal contributions to mapping neural networks underlying visceral pain and elucidating brain-gut –microbiome axis in humans. As a result, she was the recipient of the 2011 Master’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic or Clinical Digestive Sciences, American Gastroenterology Association. Dr Labus has been the recipient of a K08 Career Development award, Effective connectivity of central response in irritable bowel disorder, from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). She has served as the primary investigator on two grants funded by the National Institute of Childhood Health and Human Development (NICHD): R01HD076756 Profiling vulvodynia subtypes based on neurobiological and behavioral endophenotypes and R21HD086737 Deriving novel biomarkers of localized provoked vulvodynia through metabolomics: A biological system-based approach. Labus is a co-investigator on several NIH funded grants, international research collaborations, and is actively involved in mentoring graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
Publications
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1TAcC6itlmG/bibliography/44260598/public/
Helen Lavretsky, MD
Professor in Residence, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences; Professor in-Residence, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior
Dr. Helen Lavretsky is a Professor In-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA, a geriatric psychiatrist with research interest in geriatric and caregiver depression, as well as complementary and alternative medicine and mind-body approaches to treatment and prevention of mood and cognitive disorders in older adults. She received the 2001-2007 and 2010-2015 Career Development awards from NIMH and other prestigious research awards. Her current research studies include an NIMH-funded randomized trial of methylphenidate augmentation of citalopram to improve clinical and cognitive outcomes in geriatric depression, and the NCCAM funded study of complementary use of Tai-Chi to improve antidepressant response in geriatric depression, as well as a meditation study for family dementia caregivers, and a study of milnacipran for treatment of pain in older adults with rheumatoid arthritis. She has developed an elective rotation in clinical research for Medical Students at UCLA. After receiving her Medical Degree from the Moscow Medical Institute, Dr. Lavretsky performed her residency in Psychiatry at UCLA-San Fernando Valley Residency Program, followed by the UCLA Fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry, and the national VA Research Fellowship in Neurosciences. She received her Degree of Master of Science in Clinical Research from UCLA in 2004.
Robert Lemelson, PhD
Co-Vice President and Secretary, The Lemelson Foundation; Research Anthropologist, the Semel Institute of Neuroscience at UCLA
Robert Lemelson, Ph.D. is an Anthropologist and documentary film maker who received his M.A. from the University of Chicago and his doctoral degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He serves as a research anthropologist at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and as an assistant adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA.
As an anthropologist and documentary film maker, Dr. Lemelson’s work centers on culture, personal experience, and mental illness in Indonesia and in the United States. He has been creating documentary films in Indonesia since 1997, focusing on the relationship between culture and disorders including obsessive-compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, and Tourette’s syndrome. In 2007 he founded Elemental Productions, an ethnographic documentary film production company.
In addition, Dr. Lemelson is the founder and president of the Foundation for Psychocultural Research, a non-profit foundation supporting research and training in neuroscience and the social sciences. He also serves as a director of the Lemelson Foundation, promoting innovation of socially beneficial and sustainable technologies to meet basic human needs in countries around the world.
In 2007, Dr. Lemelson began the Lemelson/Society for Psychological Anthropology (SPA) student fellows and conference funds program. The program works to encourage graduate students to pursue fieldwork in psychological anthropology and to support faculty conferences fostering new and creative ideas in psychological anthropology.
Matthew Lieberman, PhD
Professor; SCN Lab Director, UCLA
Edythe London, PhD
Professor in Residence, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA
Dr. London received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Maryland and her postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Before coming to UCLA in 2001, she was the Director of the Brain Imaging Center for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and held faculty appointments at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine. Dr. London is a Professor-in-Residence in the Departments of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology. Her work focuses on the use of neuroimaging to study neural circuitry underlying self-control and behaviors related to addiction.