A
Olujimi Ajijola, MD, PhD
Dr. Olujimi Ajijola is a cardiologist in Los Angeles, California and is affiliated with UCLA Medical Center. He received his medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine and has been in practice for 9 years. Dr. Ajijola accepts several types of health insurance, listed below. He is one of 156 doctors at UCLA Medical Center who specialize in Cardiovascular Disease.
Jeffrey Alger, PhD
Dr. Jeffry R. Alger received a PhD in biophysical chemistry under the direction of Professor James H. Prestegard at Yale University in 1979. Dr. Alger’s PhD dissertation research focused on nuclear magnetic resonance magnetization transfer. He did postdoctoral training on multinuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) of cells and living animals in the Yale Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry between 1979 and 1984 under the direction of Dr. Robert G. Shulman. During his appointment as assistant professor in the Yale Department of Radiology (1984-1986), he participated in the design and construction of the first Magnetic Resonance Center at the Yale University School of Medicine. From 1986 until 1994, Dr. Alger was a staff scientist, and later a section chief, at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland. During this period he performed some of the first proton MRS studies of human brain cancer and was an early pioneer in diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of stroke. In 1994, Dr. Alger moved to Los Angeles and became a faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Department of Radiology and in the Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center. He was promoted to the rank of Professor in July 2000. His primary faculty appointment moved to the UCLA Department of Neurology in 2005. His current research lies in neuroscience imaging applications of MRI with focus on MRS, diffusion tensor imaging and perfusion imaging. A general research goal is to develop magnetic resonance biomarkers that can assess neurological diseases and disorders. He collaborates with teams doing clinical trials and clinical research studies involving stroke, traumatic brain injury, cerebral neoplasia, multiple sclerosis and HIV dementia. In 2007 his laboratory acquired a 7 T 30 cm MRI system which is being used to pursue analogous research in animal models. Dr. Alger has co-authored more than 140 peer-reviewed publications. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and by private foundations. Dr. Alger is affiliated with UCLA’s Interdepartmental Program in Biomedical Physics where he teaches graduate level courses in human anatomy and medical imaging. He also supervises the dissertation research of medical physics PhD students.
John Allman, PhD
Peter A. Anton, MD
Dr. Anton is the Director of the UCLA Center for HIV and Digestive Diseases and co-Director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Center at UCLA. Dr. Anton’s research is in the field of mucosal immunology and was initially directed toward identifying mechanisms underlying the neuroimmunomodulatory responses in IBD. His expertise in T cell acquisition from endoscopic biopsies and interest in the mucosal immune system has been applied to the area of HIV pathogenesis. This has entailed optimizing assays for isolating mucosal T cells for phenotypic analysis by flow and quantitating HIV viral burden in the tissue (both HIV RNA and DNA). His current research uses these assays and other developing indices of mucosal immune response to assess (i) the degree of mucosal inflammation and altered co-receptor expression associated with HIV infection (and associated therapeutic interventions) and (ii) the potential use of the mucosa as a route of HIV immunization. Dr. Anton is active in the NIH-sponsored AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), Mucosal Immunology Focus Group, and in efforts to clarify the role of compartments in HIV pathogenesis.
Selected References:
Cole SW, Kemeny ME, Weitzman OB, Schoen M, Anton PA. Socially inhibited individuals show heightened DTH response during intense social engagement. Brain, Behavior and Immunity. 1999; 13:187-200.
Rawsthorne P, Shanahan F, Cronin NC, Anton PA, Löfberg R, Bohman L, Bernstein CN. An international survey of the use and attitudes regarding alternative medicine by patients with inflammatory bowel disease. American Journal of Gastroenterology. 1999; 94:1298-1303.
Goode T, O’Connell J, Anton P, Wong H, Reeve J, O’Sullivan GC, Collins JK, Shanahan F. Neurokinin-1 receptor expression in inflammatory bowel disease: molecular quantitation and localisation. Gut (England). 2000; 47(3):387-96.
2734 MRL 701922 Los Angeles CA 90024
Arthur Arnold, PhD
We study the biological origins of sex differences, especially in the brain. All sex differences stem from the differential effects of genes on the sex chromosomes. We study the direct efffects of sex chromosome genes on the brain and other cells, differences caused by X- and Y-linked genes. We also study the indirect effects of these genes, for example the powerful sex-specific effects of gonadal hormones. Our studies focus on two model systems in songbirds and mice. We exploit mouse models in which gonadal sex (testes vs. ovaries) is independent of sex chromosome complement(XX vs. XY). In songbirds, we study the neural circuit for song, which is structurally much different in males and females. We also study the basic properites of sex chromosomes in birds, and mechanisms of sex chromosome dosage compensation.
Selected References:
Gatewood JD, Wills A, Shetty S, Xu J, Arnold AP, Burgoyne PS, Rissman EF. 2006. Sex chromosome complement and gonadal sex influence aggressive and parental behaviors in mice Journal of Neuroscience 26: 2335-2342 .
Itoh Y, Kampf K, Arnold AP. 2006. Assignment of human X chromosome-syntenic genes to a zebra finch microchromosome by in situ hybridization of BAC clones Cytogenetic and Genome Research 112: 343-344 .
Xu J, Taya, S, Kaibuchi K, Arnold AP.. 2005. Spatially and temporally specific expression in mouse hippocampus of Usp9x, a ubiquitin-specific protease involved in synaptic development. Journal of Neuroscience Research 80: 47-55 .
Itoh Y, Arnold AP. 2005. Chromosomal polymorphism and comparative painting analysis in the zebra finch Chromosome Research 13: 47-56 .
Palaszynski KM, Smith DL, Burgoyne PS, Arnold AP, Voskuhl RR. 2005. A yin-yang effect between sex chromosomes and sex hormones on the immune response Endocrinology 146: 3280-3285 .
Chen X, Agate RJ, Itoh Y, Arnold AP. 2005. Sexually dimorphic expression of trkB, a Z-linked gene, in early posthatch zebra finch brain Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 102: 7730-7735 .
Xu J, Taya S, Kaibuchi K, Arnold AP. 2005. Sexually dimorphic expression of Usp9x is related to sex chromosome complement in adult mouse brain European Journal of Neuroscience 21: 3017-3022 .
Kim Y-H, Arnold AP.. 2005. Distribution and onset of aldehyde dehydrogenase (zRalDH) expression in zebra finch brain: lack of sex difference in HVC and RA at early posthatch ages Journal of Neurobiology 65: 260-268 .
Xu J, Watkins R, Arnold AP.. 2005. Sexually dimorphic expression of the X-linked gene Eif2s3x mRNA but not protein in mouse brain Gene Expression Patterns 6: 146-155 .
Luo M., Yu Y, Kim H, Kudrna D, Itoh Y, Agate RJ, Melamed E, Goicoechea JL, Talag J, Mueller C, Wang W, Currie J, Sisneros NB, Wing RA, Arnold AP. 2005. Utilization of a zebra finch BAC library to determine the structure of an avian androgen receptor genomic region Genomics 87: 181-190 .
Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology Terasaki Life Sciences Building Rooom 1129 Los Angeles CA 90095-7239
B
Pierre Baldi, PhD
Pierre Baldi has been the Founding Director of the UCI Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics (IGB) and its Bioinformatics Laboratory for the past 18 years, with a primary appointment in the UCI Department of Computer Science and a joint appointment in the Departments of Biological Chemistry in the School of Medicine, in the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology in the School of Biological Sciences, and the Department of Statistics in the School of Information and Computer Sciences. He has expertise in statistics, machine learning (deep learning), and bioinformatics and their applications to big data problems in genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, systems biology, computational neuroscience, and biomedical imaging. His laboratory has produced and maintained datatabases, programs, and web servers that are widely used by the scientific community including the ChemDB database of small molecules, the SCRATCH suite of protein feature predictors, the Cyber-T program for the differential analysis of gene expression data, and the MotifMap system for charting transcription factor binding sites on a genomewide scale and for supporting gene regulatory mechanisms inferences. Through the IGB and his laboratory, he is also directly responsible for the informatics infrastructure and analysis for all the high-throughput data produced by the UCI Genomics High-Throughput Facility. His laboratory has designed entire pipelines for analyzing high-throughput sequencing data [see, for instance: M. Zeller, C. Magnan, V. R. Patel, P. Rigor. L. Sender, and P. Baldi. A Genomic Analysis Pipeline and Its Application to Pediatric Cancers. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, 11, 5, 826-839, (2014)]. He has mentored over 40 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and for 10 years and was the PI and Director of the NIH-NLM sponsored T32 BIT (Biomedical Informatics Training) grant at UCI.
Publications
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/pierre.baldi.1/bibliography/48012401/public
4038 Bren Hall University of California, Irvine (UCI) Irvine CA 92697-3435 United States
Lori Birder, PhD
My laboratory is interested in understanding the complexities of urinary bladder epithelial (urothelial) cell function and urothelial cell-neuronal interactions. Our investigations have revealed that the urothelium, a stratified epithelial layer that lines the bladder lumen, might have the capacity to send signals to neighboring cells via the release of chemical mediators such as nitric oxide (NO) and ATP.
Our recent identification of a number of functional receptors/ion channels in bladder urothelial cells and the possible involvement of these receptors/ion channels in the release of mediators suggest that these cells exhibit specialized sensory and signaling properties. For example, we recently found that vanilloid receptor 1 (TRPV1) is expressed not only by afferent nerves that form close contacts with urothelial cells, but also by the urothelial cells themselves.
This arrangement would represent a departure from the conventional view of the urothelium as a simple barrier and provide further support for our speculation that the urothelium has “neuron-like” properties and that it may play a role in sensory mechanisms in the urinary bladder. Through an array of experimental approaches that include molecular biology (mouse knockouts; micro array analysis), measurement of transmitters (ATP, NO), Ca2+/confocal imaging techniques and in vivo monitoring of afferent and reflex bladder activity, our goals are to further characterize the properties of urothelial cells.
Elucidation of mechanisms impacting on urothelial function in addition to how pathology may impact on mechanisms of urothelial communication may provide important insight into targets for new therapies for the clinical management of lower urinary tract disorders.
Selected References
Hanna-Mitchell AT, JM Beckel, S Barbadora, AJ Kanai, WC de Groat and LA Birder. Non-neuronal acetylcholine and urinary bladder urothelium. Life Sciences in press.
Chopra B, SE Barrick, S Meyers, JM Beckel, ML Zeidel, AP Ford, WC de Groat and LA Birder. Expression and function of bradykinin B1 and B2 receptors in normal and inflamed rat urinary bladder urothelium Journal of Physiology 562:859-871, 2005.
Birder LA, A Wolf-Johnston, CA Buffington, JR Roppolo, WC de Groat and AJ Kanai. Altered inducible nitric oxide synthase expression and nitric oxide production in the bladder of cats with feline interstitial cystitis. Journal of Urology 173:625-629, 2005.
Birder LA, HZ Ruan, B Chopra, Z Xiang, S Barrick, CA Buffington, JR Roppolo, AP Ford, WC de Groat and G Burnstock. Alterations in P2X and P2Y purinergic receptor expression in urinary bladder from normal cats and cats with interstitial cystitis. Am J Physiology 287:F1084-1091, 2004.
Birder LA, Y Nakamura, S Kiss, M Nealen, S Barrick, AJ Kanai, E Wang, G Ruiz, WC de Groat, G Apodaca, W Watkins and MJ Caterina. Altered bladder function in mice lacking the vanilloid receptor TRPV1. Nature Neuroscience 5(9):856-890, 2002.
Susan Bookheimer, PhD
Dr. Susan Bookheimer is Clinical Neuropsychologist and Professor-in-Residence in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Department of Psychology. She specializes in functional brain imaging with PET and functional MRI. Her work has focused on the organization of language and memory in the brain, in healthy adults and children and in neurologic conditions and developmental disorders. Recent work focuses on understanding the neural basis of social communication deficits in autism using functional MRI, encompassing both verbal and non-verbal communication, and focusing on emotional aspects of social comprehension.
Dr. Bookheimer also maintains active research programs imaging dyslexia, Alzheimer’s disease, and pre-surgical planning in patients with brain lesions such as tumors, arterio-venous malformations, and epilepsy. Dr. Bookheimer received her Bachelors degree in psychology from Cornell University in 1982, and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Wayne State University in 1989. She performed a postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before coming to UCLA in 1993.
Center for Cognitive Neurosciences 760 Westwood Plaza, Suite 17-369 Los Angeles CA 90095
Nigel Bunnett, PhD
Nigel Bunnett was educated at Cambridge University where he was awarded a Ph.D. degree in 1981. He spent the next thirty years of his career on the West Coast of the United States, as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, and then an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle. In 1987 he joined the University of California, San Francisco, and he remained there for almost twenty five years, becoming Professor of Surgery and Physiology, Vice Chair of Surgery, and Director of the UCSF Center for the Neurobiology of Digestive Diseases. Nigel relocated to Monash University, Melbourne in 2011, where holds appointments as NHMRC Australia Fellow, Professor of Pharmacology and Medicine, and Deputy Director of the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Science.
Nigel’s research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of inflammation and pain, which underlie diseases of global relevance. He is particularly recognized for his work on defining the functions and regulation of G protein-coupled receptors and transient receptor potential ion channels, two major classes of cell-surface proteins that are essential for the transmission of inflammation and pain. Nigel’s work has been reported in ~300 research papers, reviews and chapters, and is funded by the NHMRC, ARC and NIH. His contributions have been recognized by awards including an Australia Fellowship, an NIH MERIT Award, the Novartis Neurogastroenterology Award, the Jansen Award for Basic Research in Gastroenterology, and the Victor Mutt Award for Research in Regulatory Peptides. Throughout his career Nigel has been committed to medical education, and he has received numerous awards in recognition of his dedication to teaching.
Selected References:
PubMed Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Bunnett%20N
Murphy JE, Padilla BE, Hasdemir B, Cottrell GS, Bunnett NW. Endosomes: a legitimate platform for the signaling train. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 106: 17615-17622, 2009.
Alemi F, Kwon E, Poole DP, Lieu T, Lyo V, Cattaruzza F, Cevikbas F, Steinhoff M, Nassini R, Materazzi S, Guerrero-Alba R, Valdez-Morales E, Cottrell GS, Schoonjans K, Geppetti P, Vanner SJ, Bunnett NW*, Corvera CU. The TGR5 receptor mediates bile acid-induced itch and analgesia. J Clin Invest, 123: 1513-1530, 2013. * Corresponding author
Steinhoff MS, von Mentzer B, Geppetti P, Pothoulakis C, Bunnett NW. Tachykinins and their receptors: contributions to physiological control and the mechanisms of disease. Physiol Rev, 94: 265-301, 2014.
Jensen D, Halls M, Murphy JE, Canals M, Cattaruzza F. Lieu T, Poole DP, Koon H-W, Pothoulakis C, Bunnett NW. Endothelin-converting enzyme-1 and β-arrestins exert spatiotemporal control of substance P-induced inflammatory signals. J Biol Chem. In press.
Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences 381 Royal Parade Parkville VIC 3052 Australia
C
Lin Chang, MD
Lin Chang is a gastroenterologist and physician scientist who serves as Co-Director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, an interdisciplinary center with a research and clinical focus on the interactions of pain, stress and emotions in health and disease. She has served as Co-Director of the Administrative Core of our Center’s NIH Specialized Centers of Research (SCOR), which has been funded for the past 16 years. Our SCOR has focused on sex differences in brain-gut interactions mainly with regard to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). She has served as PI of one of the projects for each cycle. For this SCORE renewal, she will serve as Multi-PI, Co-Lead of Project 1, Co-Lead of the Career Enhancement Core (CEC), and Co-Lead of the Administrative Core. As Co-Lead of the CEC, she will oversee the collaboration with the pilot and feasibility programs to provide seed grant funding, oversee the recruitment and mentoring of young investigators, and organization of educational conferences. She has been performing clinical and translational research studies, including clinical treatment trials for 25 years. Her research has focused on brain-gut interactions, specifically pathophysiologic mechanisms, clinical symptoms, health outcomes, and treatment in IBS. She has mentored 3 gastroenterology research fellows on the UCLA Gastroenterology T32 training grant in addition to 10 clinical GI fellows, 11 medical residents, 3 post-docs, 8 visiting scientists, 10 medical students, and 5 pre-med students. Her leadership positions include Vice-Chief of the Division of Digestive Diseases at UCLA, Program Director of the UCLA GI Fellowship Program, Clinical Research Councilor of the AGA Governing Board, President of the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society (ANMS), member of the Rome Foundation Board of Directors. She currently serving a 4-year term on the NIH Clinical, Integrative and Molecular Gastroenterology Study Section and FDA GI Advisory Committee.
Publications
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/lin.chang.1/bibliography/40548865/public
10833 Le Conte Avenue Center for Health Sciences 42-210 Los Angeles CA 90095 United States
Marie-Francoise Chesselet, MD, PhD
Marie-Françoise Chesselet is the Charles H. Markham Professor of Neurology, distinguished Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Neurobiology, and Interim Chair of the Department of Neurology at UCLA. After receiving the M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in Paris, France, she held research positions in France and faculty positions at the Medical College of Pennsylvania and the University of Pennsylvania, before joining UCLA in 1996. At UCLA, Dr. Chesselet chaired the Department of Neurobiology from 2002 to 2013 and is currently the Director of the Integrative Center for Neural Repair, which includes the Center for the Study of Parkinson’s Disease at UCLA she created in 1998. She has directed the NINDS-funded UCLA UDALL Center for Parkinson’s disease research from 1998 to 2013, the NIEHS-funded UCLA Center for Gene Environment in Parkinson’s Disease from 2002 to 2014, and the UCLA Advanced Center for Parkinson’s Disease Research of the American Parkinson Disease Association since 1998. Dr. Chesselet has directed graduate programs at the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA and has directed the NINDS-funded Training Program in Neural Repair from 1998 to 2014. Her laboratory conducts research on the molecular mechanisms of disorders of the basal ganglia and new treatments for Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases. Her work has been extensively supported by the NIH, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, Cure HD Initiative, and several bio pharmaceutical companies. She currently holds grants from the Department of Defense, CIRM, and Tsumura Inc. Dr. Chesselet is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and currently chair its section on Neuroscience. She just completed a 4 years term on the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council.
UCLA Neuro / Neurobiology BOX 951769, B-114 RNRC Los Angeles CA 90095
Mark Cohen, PhD
Mark Cohen’s training is equal parts engineering and neuroscience. His contributions include his critical role in the development of practical echo-planar scanning, ultra-fast MRI applications, contrast-based and BOLD functional MRI, applications of linear systems analysis to increase fMRI sensitiivity and resolution, and concurrent recordings of EEG and fMRI to better understand brain dynamics and distributed processing. He and his lab have contributed to an understanding of the power of pattern recognition and machine learning to both interpet/classify neural data and as a source of discovery of the processes that result in cognition, perception, emotion and pathology.
Cohen is passionate about graduate and post-graduate education. As the creator and director of the UCLA/Semel NeuroImaging Training Program he has pushed his students to an integrative understanding of the role of imaging in neuroscience: The use of images as hypothesis tests, the relationship between blurring, convolution, statistical error and inference from images, and an understanding of the structures common to neuroimages regardless of imaging modality.
His current focus now includes inquiry into the broader problems of images, beyond neuroscience, to encompass astronomy and nanoscale imaging, aesthetics to statistics, dimensional compression and dimensional expansion.
Cohen holds appointments in the UCLA Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology, Radiology, Biomedical Engineering, Psychology and Biomedical Physics and is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute.
UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior UCLA School of Medicine, Room C9-420 Los Angeles CA 90095
Ian Cook, MD
Ian A. Cook, M.D. holds the Joanne and George Miller and Family Endowed Chair in Depression Research. He is a Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences in the David Geffen School of Medicine, and a Research Scientist at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Dr. Cook received his bachelors degree with high honors from Princeton University and his medical degree from the Yale University School of Medicine. He completed his psychiatry residency training at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, where he also was an NIMH-funded research fellow. Dr. Cook served on the Executive Committee on Practice Guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association, and guided the electronic dissemination of their evidence-based guidelines in psychiatry. A board-certified Psychiatrist, he has also served as an examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. His biography is profiled in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, and Best Doctors. He is the author of numerous publications on brain function in mental illness and in aging, and holds several patents on biomedical devices and methods.
Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA 760 Westwood Plaza Los Angeles CA 90095
Bud Craig, PhD
Michelle G. Craske, PhD
Dr. Craske is Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, and Director of the Anxiety Disorders Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles. She has published widely on the topics of fear and anxiety disorders, their etiology, assessment and treatment. She has been the recipient of continuous NIMH funding since 1993 for research projects pertaining to risk factors for phobias, anxiety disorders and depression; attentional biases and psychophysiological fear responding; the translation of basic science of fear extinction to human phobias and mechanisms of exposure therapy; and the development and implementation of treatments for anxiety and related disorders. Dr. Craske was Associate Editor for the Journal of Abnormal Psychology and is currently Associate Editor for Behaviour Research and Therapy is a Scientific Board Member for the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, and a member of the Anxiety Disorders Work Group for DSM-V.
Selected References:
Craske MG, Wolitzky-Taylor KB, Mineka S, Zinbarg R, Waters AM, Vrshek-Schallhorn S, Epstein A, Naliboff B, Ornitz E. Elevated responding to safe conditions as a specific risk factor for anxiety versus depressive disorders: Evidence from a longitudinal investigation. J Abnorm Psychol. 2011.
Craske MG, Wolitzky-Taylor KB, Labus J, Wu S, Frese M, Mayer EA, Naliboff BD. A cognitive-behavioral treatment for irritable bowel syndrome using interoceptive exposure to visceral sensations. Behav Res Ther. 2011 Jun;49(6-7):413-21. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3100429.
Craske MG, Stein MB, Sullivan G, Sherbourne C, Bystritsky A, Rose RD, Lang AJ, Welch S, Campbell-Sills L, Golinelli D, Roy-Byrne P. Disorder-specific impact of coordinated anxiety learning and management treatment for anxiety disorders in primary care. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2011 Apr;68(4):378-88. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3074172.
Craske MG, Kircanski K, Epstein A, Wittchen HU, Pine DS, Lewis-Fernández R, Hinton D; DSM V Anxiety; OC Spectrum; Posttraumatic and Dissociative Disorder Work Group. Panic disorder: a review of DSM-IV panic disorder and proposals for DSM-V. Depress Anxiety. 2010 Feb;27(2):93-112. Review.
E
Naomi Eisenberger, PhD
Research Overview:
Why is it that our social relationships have such a profound impact on our emotional and physical well-being? Why does feeling connected to those we love feel so good, whereas feeling estranged from them cause so much pain? In my laboratory, we use behavioral, physiological, and neuroimaging techniques to understand how our need for social connection has left its mark on our minds, brains, and bodies. The following are some of the topics that we are currently investigating:
The Neural Basis of Social Rejection:
When people feel rejected or left out, they often describe their feelings with physical pain words, complaining of “hurt feelings” or “broken hearts.” Our research has shown that feeling socially excluded activates some of the same neural regions that are activated in response to physical pain, suggesting that social rejection may indeed be “painful.” To follow up on this research, we are currently examining the genetic determinants of rejection sensitivity as well as whether the fear of rejection relies on different neural circuitry than the experience of it.
The Neural Basis of Social Connection:
We all know the feeling that we have when we feel truly connected to someone else. However, we know very little about the neural circuitry that underlies this feeling or the physiological processes that accompany it. We are currently investigating the neural and physiological substrates associated with feeling “social warmth,” the positive, contented experiential state associated with being in the company of close others.
Social Support and Health:
Over the past several decades, researchers have repeatedly shown that having social support is beneficial for physical health whereas not having it increases the risk of morbidity and mortality. Although social support is a robust predictor of physical health, comparable to other risk factors such as smoking and high blood pressure, little is known about how social support influences health. In our lab, we use neuroimaging techniques to examine the neural processes that translate perceptions of social support or a lack thereof into the health outcomes that follow.
4444 Franz Hall Los Angeles CA 90095
Benjamin Ellingson, PhD
As Director of the UCLA Brain Tumor Imaging Laboratory and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Computer Vision and Imaging Biomarkers (CVIB) his research focuses on the development, testing, validation, and implementation of advanced MR and PET imaging biomarkers for brain pathology and response evaluation in clinical trials. He possess a broad background in biomedical engineering, image processing, MR and PET imaging physics, functional and molecular imaging, bioelectronics, medical instrumentation, and statistical parameter mapping. He has been co-author on more than 100 peer-reviewed original research articles relating to advanced neuroimaging and medical imaging physics. He has wide-ranging experience in designing and implementing multicenter neuroimaging trials. This includes trials in primary and metastatic brain cancers; neurotrauma including traumatic brain injury (TBI), traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI), and degenerative spinal disease; psychiatric diseases including schizophrenia; epilepsy, tuberous sclerosis complex, and other neurodegenerative diseases; and chronic pain syndromes including cervical spondylotic myelopathy, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), chronic headaches, and urological chronic pelvic pain syndrome (UCPPS). He is also the principal investigator for the imaging core in numerous industry-funded therapeutic clinical trials in brain tumors, chronic pain, epilepsy, and schizophrenia.
In this proposal, he will be Co-Lead of Project 2 and will be responsible for the design and analysis of all brainstem and brain MRI experiments, including optimization of protocols for both 3T and 7T imaging. His laboratory will post-process anatomic and diffusion MR imaging data, and work closely with Neuroimaging and Bioinformatics Core to identify sex-related differences in the brain and brainstem within IBS patients and the association with clinical symptoms and gut microbial parameters.
Publications
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1t5OXTmr85Skz/bibliography/50293169/public/
924 Westwood Blvd Ste # 615 Los Angeles CA 90095-7319 United States
Helena Ennes, MD
Eric Esrailian, MD
Dr. Esrailian attended the University of California at Berkeley and graduated with a major in Integrative Biology and a minor in English. He subsequently graduated from the Loma Linda University School of Medicine and completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Southern California.
He was named intern, junior resident, and senior resident of the year during all three years of his residency training. He completed his gastroenterology fellowship at UCLA where he also obtained a Masters of Public Health degree with the assistance of an NIH sponsored training grant. He is also a graduate of the Executive Program in Management from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Dr. Esrailian served on the Medical Board of California from 2010-2011 after being appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Dr. Esrailian’s primary clinical interests include gastrointestinal endoscopy, inflammatory bowel diseases, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, and functional gastrointestinal diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome. In addition to disease areas within gastroenterology and internal medicine, Dr. Esrailian has a particular interest in the development of biomedical innovations, value in health care, medical education, and initiatives towards patient-centered care.
In 2012, the School of Medicine awarded him the Lincy Foundation Chair in Clinical Gastroenterology. He is closely involved in growth strategy and strategic planning efforts for the UCLA Health System and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He also works to facilitate community engagement with a number of other schools and departments within the UCLA campus and its Los Angeles community partners, and he is on the UCLA campus steering committee for the Centennial Campaign.
Christopher Evans, PhD
Dr. Chris Evans is currently Director of the UCLA Brain Research Institute and the Stefan Hatos Professor directing the Shirley and Stefan Hatos Center for Neurophamacology in the UCLA Semel Institute. Dr. Evans is also director of a NIH-funded center – The Center for Opioid Receptors and Drugs of Abuse or CSORDA. CSORDA, with continuous NIH funding for over 25 years.
Selected References:
Gioiosa, L. Chen, X. Watkins, R. Klanfer, N. Bryant, C. D. Evans, C. J. Arnold, A. P. Sex chromosome complement affects nociception in tests of acute and chronic exposure to morphine in mice. Horm Behav. 2008; 53(1): 124-30.
Walwyn, W. Evans, C. J. Hales, T. G. Beta-arrestin2 and c-Src regulate the constitutive activity and recycling of mu opioid receptors in dorsal root ganglion neurons. J Neurosci. 2007; 27(19): 5092-104.
Kho, S. T. Lopez, I. A. Evans, C. Ishiyama, A. Ishiyama, G. Immunolocalization of orphanin FQ in rat cochlea. Brain Res. 2006; 1113(1): 146-52.
Bryant, C. D. Roberts, K. W. Byun, J. S. Fanselow, M. S. Evans, C. J. Morphine analgesic tolerance in 129P3/J and 129S6/SvEv mice. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 2006; 85(4): 769-79.
Walwyn, W. M. Wei, W. Xie, C. W. Chiu, K. Kieffer, B. L. Evans, C. J. Maidment, N. T. Mu opioid receptor-effector coupling and trafficking in dorsal root ganglia neurons. Neuroscience. 2006; 142(2): 493-503.
MacDonald Research Laboratories, Room 2760 675 Charles Young Drive Los Angeles CA 90095