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.
H
Margaret Heitkemper, PhD
Professor and Chair, Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics; Adjunct Professor, Division of Gastroenterology; Director, Center for Research on Management of Sleep Disturbances, University of Washington
I am a Professor at the UW School of Nursing and an Adjunct Professor in the Division of Gastroenterology at the UW School of Medicine. My research program has focused on elucidating the mechanisms associated with abdominal pain in women with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a common gastrointestinal (GI) function and pain condition. In addition, I led a subcontract for the study of IBS in children NR013497 and am currently a collaborator on a recently funded clinical study of FODMAPS and behavioral interventions for parents of children with IBS (Shulman, PI). My team and I have conducted three RCTs of a comprehensive self-management nurse-delivered intervention to reduce symptom (psychological distress, GI symptoms) in men and women with IBS. The findings from these studies resulted in the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) published (2010) book Master your IBS. I served as co-chair of the Gender, Women’s Health, Age and the Patient’s Perspective for the Rome IV publication. In 2015 I served as co-chair of the AGA sponsored Freston Conference focused on IBS. I am also co-Director of the NINR-funded P30 Center for Innovations in Sleep Self-Management and Director of an NINR-funded T32 program titled Omics & Symptom Science. My team and I have explored the presence of potential biomarkers in patients with IBS as well as their predictive value in determining a priori who is most likely to benefit from behavioral-based therapies. An important predictor is vagal tone prior to the intervention. Of relevance to the proposed study, we have conducted studies of the microbiome and metabolome in women with IBS. We have utilized daily diaries to compare symptoms women and without IBS across the menstrual cycle and during the per-menopause transition. I have been been a longtime collaborator with Dr. Chang and her colleagues at UCLA. We have published several papers related to women, gender, and functional GI disorders.
Publications
Daniel Holschneider, MD
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Department of Neurology, Department of Cell and Neurobiology, University of Southern California
The Laboratory of Vertebrate Functional Brain Mapping has over a decade of experience in imaging of the rodent brain, with expertise in behaviors in rodent models of pain, anxiety, brain injury, and anxiety, as well as in physiologic monitoring (ECG, EMG, EEG, cardiovascular function). The lab uses a variety of techniques in the analyses of the three-dimensional autoradiographic data sets of the rat and mouse brains, including region-of-interest analysis, statistical parametric mapping, as well as functional connectivity. A primary interest has been the development of new methods for functional brain imaging of rodent behaviors as they occur in freely moving animal in normal and pathological states. Ongoing projects examine activation of neural circuits and functional brain reorganization in rat models of visceral pain, traumatic brain injury, ‘Parkinson’s Disease’, and the serotonin transporter knockout mouse.
Selected References:
Wang Z, Ocampo MA, Pang RD, Bota M, Bradesi S, Mayer EA, Holschneider DP “Alterations in Prefrontal-Limbic Functional Activation and Connectivity in Chronic Stress-Induced Visceral Hyperalgesia”, PLoS ONE, 8(3):e59138, 2013, PMID:23527114
Holschneider DP, Guo Y, Wang Z, Roch M, Scremin OU, “Remote brain networks changes after unilateral cortical impact injury and their modulation by acetylcholinesterase inhibition” Journal of Neurotrauma, 30(11):907-919, 2013, PMID:23343118
Wang Z, Myers KG, Guo Y, Ocampo MA, Pang RD, Jakowec MW, Holschneider DP, “Functional reorganization of motor and limbic circuits after forced exercise training in a rat model of bilateral Parkinsonism”, PLoS ONE, 8(11), e80058, 2013, PMID:24278239
Holschneider DP, Wang Z, Pang RD, “Functional connectivity-based parcellation and connectome of cortical midline structures in the mouse: a perfusion autoradiography study”, Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, Jun 11;8:61. doi: 10.3389/fninf.2014.00061, 2014, PMID 24966831
Wang Z, Guo Y, Myers KG, Heintz R, Peng Y-H, Maarek J-MI, Holschneider DP “Exercise alters resting state functional connectivity of motor circuits in Parkinsonian rats,” Neurobiology of Aging, in press
Elaine Hsiao, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, De Logi Chair in Biological Sciences, Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. Elaine Y. Hsiao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology at UCLA, where she leads a laboratory studying fundamental interactions between the microbiome, brain and behavior, and their applications to neurological disorders. Her studies on the relationships between the microbiota, immune system and nervous system led her to discover that the microbiota can regulate behavioral, metabolic and gastrointestinal abnormalities relevant to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Her work in this area, and on neuroimmune interactions in autism, has led to several honors, including the National Institutes of Health Director’s Early Independence Award, distinction as Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Science and Healthcare, National Geographic’s Emerging Explorer Award and fellowships from the National Institute of Mental Health and Autism Speaks. Inspired by this interplay between the microbiota and nervous system, the Hsiao laboratory is mining the human microbiota for microbial modulators of host neuroactive molecules, investigating the impact of microbiota-immune system interactions on neurodevelopment and examining the microbiome as an interface between gene-environment interactions in neurological diseases.
Selected References
Yano JM, Yu K, Donaldson G, Shastri G, Ma L, Ann P, Nagler C, Ismagilov RF, Mazmanian SK, Hsiao EY (2015) Indigenous bacteria from the gut microbiota regulate host serotonin biosynthesis. Cell, 161:264-76.
Hsiao EY, McBride SW, Hsien S, Sharon G, Hyde ER, McCue T, Codelli JA, Chow J, Reisman SE, Petrosino JF, Patterson PH*, Mazmanian SK* (2013) The microbiota modulates behavioral and physiological abnormalities associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. Cell, 155:1451-1463.
Hsiao EY, McBride SW, Chow J, Mazmanian SK, Patterson PH (2012) Modeling an autism risk factor in mice leads to permanent immune dysregulation. PNAS 109:12776-81
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Jonathan Jacobs, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor-in-Residence, Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. Jacobs’ research program focuses on characterizing host-microbiome interactions in patients with gastrointestinal, metabolic, and inflammatory disorders using a combination of human association studies and animal models, including humanized gnotobiotic mice. This evolved initially from several translational microbiome studies he performed investigating the mucosal microbiome and metabolome of inflammatory bowel disease patients compared to healthy family members or unrelated controls, stratified by genetic traits. These studies required the development and refinement of efficient pipelines for 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing, metabolomics, and bioinformatics analysis of multi’omics datasets. He established the Microbiome Core for the UCLA Microbiome Center to offer a range of microbiome-related services to the local research community. This core became affiliated with the UCLA Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) in Neurovisceral Sciences and Women’s Health led by Emeran Mayer and Lin Chang. Through this collaboration, his laboratory assumed responsibility for sample processing, 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing, and bioinformatics analysis for initial SCOR studies on sex differences in the brain-gut-microbiome axis of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients and healthy controls, and their relationship to symptom severity and psychological parameters. This research led to a publication in Microbiome linking microbiome features to brain structural parameters and unpublished work was presented at last year’s Digestive Diseases Week showing that the gut microbiome predicts response of IBS patients to cognitive behavioral therapy.
The current proposal would build upon these collaborations to establish a unique research program within the UCLA Center for Neurovisceral Sciences and Women’s Health dissecting sex differences in brain-gut-microbiome pathways underlying IBS. He serves as co-lead of the Data Processing and Analysis Core, with primary responsibility for microbiome analyses across all three projects and joint responsibility with his co-Leads, Jennifer Labus and Arpana Gupta, for integrative bioinformatics analyses bridging the microbiome, metabolome, neuroimaging, and clinical parameters. This exciting research would draw upon his extensive background in microbiome bioinformatics and experience as Director of the UCLA Microbiome Core.
Publications
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/browse/collection/48438874
K
Iordanis Karagiannidis, PhD
Assistant Professor, Division of Digestive Diseases, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. Karagiannides received his Bachelor’s degree in Biology at Plymouth State University and his Master’s degree in Genetics at University of New Hampshire. He went on to study in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. During his graduate work, he researched the intrinsic changes in fat cell differentiation with aging and accomplished demonstrating changes in the expression of numerous factors involved in adipocyte differentiation with increasing age in the field of fat tissue physiology.
The main target of his research is to study the extent of abdominal fat tissue involvement in the generation of inflammation during inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In this research, he found that fat cells respond to proinflammatory stimuli (such as the neuropeptide substance P), shown to be present during IBD, and in turn are able to produce inflammatory cytokines themselves. Such cytokines have also been shown to be involved in IBD pathophysiology. He hopes to ultimately achieve additional results through his research and demonstrate whether fat cells actively participate in the events taking place in the colonic lumen during IBD. As a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard, Dr. Karagiannides received a three-year Fellowship Award from the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America to investigate the SP-mediated involvement of mesenteric fat tissue in the development of IBD. He joined UCLA in July of 2007 as an assistant researcher and a member of the Center of Inflammatory Bowel Disease at the Division of Digestive Diseases and was recently awarded a two-year Broad Medical Research Program grant to investigate the affects of obesity in colitis-associated changes in the intestine and mesenteric adipose tissue. Dr. Karagiannidis has been publishing his work in high quality journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Gastroenterology, and American Journal of Physiology. Dr. Karagiannides’ work is also consistently presented during the Digestive Disease Week meetings including Posters of Distinction.
Lisa Kilpatrick, PhD
Assistant Researcher, Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress
Lisa Kilpatrick’s research has focused on brain signatures related to brain-body dysregulation in stress-sensitive disorders, including irritable bowel syndrome. In addition, she has a long-standing interest in the influence of sex on these signatures, and she regularly attends and contributes to the annual meeting of the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences. The exploration of sex differences in the mechanisms of treatment response is an important step towards optimizing cost-effective treatments for both men and women. In her role as a co-Investigator in the Bioinformatics Core, she will apply her advanced expertise on the analysis of resting state fMRI data, as well as other neuroimaging modalities, to implement the proposed neuroimaging analyses. She maintains this expertise through regular attendance at the Biennial Resting State Conference and Organization for Human Brain Mapping annual meeting, and she can quickly adapt to new developments in the rapidly-changing field of neuroimaging. In addition, she will lend her expertise in sex differences during the interpretation of the findings. She has collaborated with Drs. Gupta, Labus, and Mayer over the years and looks forward to contributing to this ambitious project.
Publications
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/lisa.kilpatrick.1/bibliography/43276745/public/
Barbara Knowlton, PhD
Professor and Vice Chair, Psychology, UCLA; Professor, Behavioral Neuroscience; Member, Brain Research Institute Neuroscience GPB Home Area
The focus of our lab is the study of the neural bases of memory. We use a number of different approaches, including neuroimaging and testing neuropsychological patients to describe functional differences between memory systems and the brain regions that support different memory processes.
Jason Kutch, PhD
Director, The Applied Mathematical Physiology Laboratory (AMPL); Associate Professor, Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy, University of Southern California
Dr. Kutch’s laboratory is addressing the problem of chronic pelvic pain from a unique systems neuroscience perspective. He has a background in motor systems neuroscience, and have developed and published several non-invasive approaches to understanding muscle control in humans. They recently developed and published a new multimodal approach – including electromyography (EMG), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) – for revealing neural mechanisms of involuntary control of pelvic floor muscles. As the co-director of the neuroimaging working group in the NIDDK-funded multi-site Multidisciplinary Approach to the Study of Chronic Pelvic Pain (MAPP) Research Network, he has played a leading role in the analysis of MAPP Phase I (2008-2013) fMRI data, and he currently plays a leading role in the design, implementation, and monitoring of the MAPP Phase II study (2014-2019). He leads MAPP research efforts to reveal brain imaging differences between pelvic pain patients and healthy controls, to predict longitudinal progression of pelvic pain symptoms from neuroimaging, and to stratify pelvic pain patients according to widespreadness of pain based on neuroimaging. In the proposed work, he will assist with the acquisition and analysis of novel 7T data to study sex related differences in patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1B12ukyP87vQk/bibliography/47270130/public/
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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.
M
Sheng-Xing Ma, MD, PhD
Professor in Residence, Obstetrics and Gynecology, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA; Member, CTSI
Sheng-Xing Ma is a Professor and Director of Integrated Medicine Research Laboratories at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He was recruited to UCLA as an Assistant Professor in 1996, and he received a promotion to Associate Professor in 2003 and Professor in 2008 in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Ma has been engaged in the studies of nitrate pharmacology, biochemistry and physiological effects of nitric oxide (NO) for the past 20 years. He has demonstrated that nitroglycerin modifies neuronal excitability, increases norepinephrine release/synthesis in heart and brain, and stimulates noradrenergic activation in the posterior hypothalamus, which contributes to nitrate tolerance and central cardiovascular effects of the drug. Results from his group have found that NO mediates acupuncture-induced cardiovascular and analgesic effects through a novel pathway, the dorsal medullar-thalamic tract. Another novel discovery is that NO-cGMP related biomolecules contribute to biochemical physiological changes in acupoints associated with meridian practices and diseases. He has developed a painless, non-invasive device to biocapture NO, cGMP, and nitrotyrosine from skin surface of acupoints and meridians for studies of signal transduction molecules during physiological and pathological changes, and therapies such as acupuncture, moxibustion, and meditation/Qi Gon.
Mark Mandelkern, MD, PhD
Juan Carlos Marvizon, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine – Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and The Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress
Dr. Juan Carlos Marvizón is Assistant Professor at the Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.Dr. Marvizón was born in 1957 in Rome, Italy. He majored in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain). He received his Ph.D. in 1985 for his work on the glycine receptor at the Severo Ochoa Center of Molecular Biology in Madrid. During 1985, he worked as a research scientist at Pharmuka Laboratoires, a pharmaceutical company in Paris, France, investigating peripheral benzodiazepine receptors. He was then awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, where he studied the biochemistry of glycine and GABA receptors in relation to stress, and later became interested in NMDA receptors. From 1989 to 1991, he was faculty at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain). Prior to coming to UCLA, he was Research Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, where he worked with Dr. Michel Baudry on the role of NMDA receptors in learning and memory. Dr. Marvizón came to UCLA in 1994. His current research focuses on the role of NMDA, substance P and opioid receptors in pain. He is the principal investigators of a grant from the NIH to study the release of substance P and opioids in the spinal cord.
Selected References:
Marvizon JCG, Grady EF, Stefani E, Bunnett NW, Mayer EA. Substance P release in the dorsal horn assessed by receptor internalization: NMDA receptors counteract a tonic inhibition by GABAB receptors. Eur. J. Neurosci. 11:417-426, 1999.
Marvizon JCG, Wang X, Matsuka Y, Neubert JK and Spigelman I. Relationship between capsaicin-evoked substance P release and NK1 receptor internalization in the rat dorsal horn. Neuroscience 118: 535-545, 2003.
Lao LJ., Song B and Marvizon JCG. Neurokinin release produced by capsaicin acting on the central terminals and axons of primary afferents: relationship with NMDA and GABAB receptors. Neuroscience 121: 667-680, 2003.
Song B and Marvizon JCG. Peptidases prevent m-opioid receptor internalization in dorsal horn neurons by endogenously released opioids. J. Neurosci. 23: 1847-1858, 2003.
Song B and Marvizón JCG. Dorsal horn neurons firing at high frequency, but not primary afferents, release opioid peptides that produce m-opioid receptor internalization in the rat spinal cord. J. Neurosci. 23: 9171-9184, 2003.
Emeran A. Mayer, MD
Director, UCLA G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience; Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Emeran Mayer is the director of the G Oppenheimer Center for the Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience (CNSR) at UCLA and co-director of the P30 funded CURE Digestive Diseases Research Center at UCLA. The CNSR is a NIH-funded, interdisciplinary and translational research center focused on brain gut microbiome interactions in 4 areas: Functional GI Disorders, Inflammatory Bowel Disorders, Ingestive Behavior/Eating Disorders, Chronic Visceral Pain Disorders. Within the CNSR, he has been the PI of a P50 SCOR grant from ORWH/NIDDK on sex-related differences in brain gut interactions with an emphasis on the effects of early adverse life effects on adult stress responsiveness and related brain circuits for the past 15 years. This grant has been successfully renewed over a total of three 5 year funding cycles under hisleadership. He is also the Co-PI of a UO1 grant focused on studying mechanisms of chronic pelvic pain (MAPP), now in its third 5 year funding cycle, and he leads the neuroimaging efforts within the consortium. Under his leadership, CNSR investigators have done pioneering work in applying psychophysiological and advanced brain imaging techniques to study the response of the brain to visceral stimuli in rodent models and human subjects with persistent visceral pain disorders, including IBS, IBD, IC/PBS and vulvodynia, to identify sex related differences in these brain responses, and to evaluate the effectiveness of pharmacologic and mind-based (including cognitive behavioral therapy) therapeutic approaches to some of these disorders. During the last 5 years, they have expanded their research efforts into the role of the gut microbiome in bidirectional brain gut interactions. They have pursued studies looking at the effect of altered autonomic nervous system output to the gut in altering gut microbial composition and function, and have been testing the hypothesis that gut microbial metabolites and inflammatory mediators in vulnerable patients can lead to neuroplastic changes in the central nervous system manifesting in persistent visceral hypersensitivity, cognitive decline and symptoms of autism spectrum disorders.
Publications:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/emeran.mayer.1/bibliograpahy/40552943/public
John Mazziotta, MD, PhD
Vice Chancellor, UCLA Health Sciences; Dean, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; CEO, UCLA Health
Dr. John C. Mazziotta assumed the position of Vice Chancellor of UCLA Health Sciences and Dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA on March 1, 2015. Dr. Mazziotta has been a member of the UCLA faculty since 1983. Before his appointment as Vice Chancellor and Dean, he served as Associate Vice Chancellor for health sciences and Executive Vice Dean of the school of medicine. Dr. Mazziotta also has been chair Department of Neurology and director of the Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, of which he was the founder.
Dr. Mazziotta earned his MD and PhD in neuroanatomy and computer science from Georgetown University. Following an internship at Georgetown, he completed neurology and nuclear medicine training at UCLA.
Dr. Mazziotta has published more than 260 research papers and eight texts. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Oldendorf Award from the American Society of Neuroimaging, the S. Weir Mitchell Award and the Wartenberg Prize of the American Academy of Neurology, and the Von Hevesy Prize from the International Society of Nuclear Medicine. Dr. Mazziotta also has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and he is a member of the Royal College of Physicians.
John McDonald, MD
Professor of Anesthesiology, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center; Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center; Professor of Anesthesiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. John McDonald received his M.D. from the University of Iowa in 1964. He completed internship at the University of Oregon in 1965. He completed an Ob/Gyn residency at the University of Iowa in 1968. He completed his second residency in Anesthesiology at the University of Washington in 1970.
His first academic position was at LAC/USC from 1970-1977 as Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Obstetrics and Gynecology. He co-founded the first neonatal intensive care unit at LAC/USC and was also director of anesthesiology and Respiratory Therapy at Women’s Hospital.
His second academic position was the University of Colorado as Professor and Vice Chairman of Anesthesiology and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1977-1978.
His third academic appointment was at The Ohio State University as Professor and Chairman of Anesthesiology and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1978-1998. He was also appointed as faculty at the Ohio Super-Computer Center 1988.
His fourth academic appointment is at Los Angeles where he is Professor and Chairman of Anesthesiology and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology both at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Dr. McDonald was recruited by founder of the Ohio Supercomputer Center, Dr. Charlie Bender; who believed his presence as faculty would stimulate ideas from the medical viewpoint that would be fresh projects for research and development of new viewpoints of model formulation. This became reality within the next few years with the development of the model of “Virtual Reality Lumbar Epidural”. This provided Dr. McDonald and colleague Don Stredney’s development of an end product that later precipitated their receiving a Smithsonian Award at the 1966 annual Washington D.C. ceremony.
Recent research efforts have focused on development of a unique research group composed of a total of five M.D.s and Ph.D.s. Our work continues to be centered about the confocal scope with the academic focus on pain messaging systems of the rat pelvis bladder, uterus, and colon. Our group has published 4 peer review papers in the past five year period.
Our current focus is development of unraveling of the mystery of pain as it concerns the “intracellular mechanisms”. We believe some of the quandary of inconsistent relief of pelvic pain lies in this medium and we plan to continue our search for some means of understanding this enigmatic major pain problem.
James McRoberts, PhD
Professor, Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. McRoberts’ research focuses on the mechanisms involved in visceral pain, particularly that associated with the GI tract. He uses in vitro biological approaches to examine neurons and neurotransmission at the cellular and molecular level. He also examines behavioral responses to various visceral pain paradigms with an emphasis on stress modulation of pain perception. The specific goal of Dr. McRoberts’ project is to determine the role of peripheral N-methyl-D-aspartate-type glutamate receptors (NMDARs) expressed on extrinsic primary afferent nerves in visceral and somatic pain transmission and in the development of peripheral and central sensitization. Using various molecular techniques and whole cell patch clamp methodology, he has identified the NMDAR subunits expressed by different subtypes of dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons, characterized the functional and pharmacological properties of these receptors, identified their role in modulating afferent sensitivity to mechanical distension of the colon, demonstrated that NMDARs in DRG neurons regulate voltage-dependent calcium channels through PKC activation, and shown that colonic inflammation leads to persistent up-regulation in NMDAR channels with altered pharmacological properties . He has also developed mice with tissue specific knock out of NMDARs in DRG neurons and shown that these mice have diminished nociceptive responses during phase 2 of the formalin test, thus demonstrating that these receptors participate in the process of central sensitization. The long-term goal of this research is find better means to control pain of visceral origin in order to help patients with functional bowel diseases such as IBS.