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Michael Fanselow, PhD
Dr. Fanselow has held academic appointments at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute and Dartmouth College before coming to UCLA in 1987. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington, where he received the Edwin B Newman Award for Excellence in Research. He has also received the Early Career Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association and the Troland Award from the National Academy of Science for his analysis of basic mechanisms of motivational systems. He is interested in how the neural systems that control fear, pain and recuperation interact with each other to produce both adaptive and maladaptive behavior. He was elected President of the American Psychological Association’s Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology and is currently President of the Pavlovian Society.
Selected References:
Fanselow MS, LeDoux JE. Why we think plasticity underlying Pavlovian fear conditioning occurs in the basolateral amygdala. Neuron. 1999; 23:229-232.
Fendt M, Fanselow MS. The neuroanatomical and neurochemical basis of conditioned fear. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 1999; 23:743-760.
Li HH, Yu W-H, Rozengurt N, Zhao H-Z, Lyons KM, Anagnostaras S, Fanselow MS, Suzuki K, Vanier MT, Neufeld EF. Mouse model of Sanfilippo syndrome type B produced by targeted disruption of the gene encoding alpha -N-acetylglucosaminidase. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. 1999; 96:14505-14510.
Fawzy Fawzy, MD
Affiliated with UCLA since 1973, Dr. Fawzy’s main area of research is the interface of psychiatry and medicine, specifically psycho-oncology. Dr. Fawzy has authored 109 published manuscripts, articles and chapters, including “A structured psychiatric intervention for cancer patients: I. Changes over time in methods of coping and affective disturbance,” “A structured psychiatric intervention for cancer patients: II. Changes over time in immunologic measures,” and “Malignant Melanoma: Effects of an early structured psychiatric intervention, coping, and affective state on recurrence and survival 6 years later,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 1990, 1990, 1993, and 2003 respectively; the manual entitled, “A Structured Psychoeducational Intervention for Cancer Patients,” General Hospital Psychiatry, 1994, and “Critical Review of Psychosocial Interventions in Cancer Care,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 1995.
In addition, he has co-edited four books. Dr. Fawzy serves as a consultant to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the American Cancer Society (ACS). He is a member of the review committee for the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. Professional societies include: Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (England), the American Psychiatric Association, the American College of Psychiatrists, the Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists, and the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine. Dr. Fawzy is past President of the American Society of Psychiatric Oncology and AIDS, and past President of the International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS).
Leah FitzGerald, RN, FNP-C, PhD
Leah FitzGerald, RN, FNP-C, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at the UCLA School of Nursing. Dr. FitzGerald is board certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP). Dr. FitzGerald has 23 years of clinical research experience. She completed post-doctoral training at the UCLA Norman Cousins Center in psychoneuroimmunology, providing a strong foundation for Biobehavioral Nursing research, recognizing the benefits and risks of preventive health behaviors and the complexity underlying behavioral change. As an educator, clinician and scientist, she has the tools to make observations about the nature and progression of health/disease that stimulates basic investigation. Dr. FitzGerald recently completed curriculum development and a subsequent research study translating oral health theory into clinical practice with master level nursing students and is familiar with the proposed methodology. This foundation provides the ability to support the expertise and experience needed to implement this proposed project.
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Terri Getzug, MD
Dr. Getzug is the director of the Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) Clinic which is the only clinic of its kind in the United States and a major referral center for this under-recognized and very treatable condition. More than 700 patients have been registered at the FMF clinic since its inception in the early 1960’s.
Dr. Getzug graduated from the University of California at Davis with a major in Nutritional Sciences. She received her medical degree from the Keck School of Medicine at USC and completed her internship, residency and gastroenterology fellowship training at UCLA. She is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.
Dr. Getzug has been on the UCLA faculty since 1991. Her primary areas of interest are general gastroenterology, functional bowel disease, celiac disease, inflammatory bowel diseases, motility, colon cancer screening and acid peptic disorders. She has extensive expertise treating patients with the gastrointestinal complications of scleroderma.
UCLA Digestive Disease Center 100 UCLA Medical Plaza Los Angeles CA 90095
Michael Goldstein, PhD
Michael S. Goldstein, PhD, is a professor of public health (community health sciences) and sociology, and UCLA’s associate vice-provost in charge of the Healthy Campus Initiative. He has also served the campus as interim vice provost for graduate education and dean of the graduate division.A faculty associate at the Center, Goldstein was co-principal investigator and program director of CHIS-CAM, an NCI-funded follow-up study to the 2001 California Health Interview Survey that examines use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among California adults, particularly those with cancer and other chronic illnesses. At UCLA, he teaches graduate courses on complementary and alternative medicine, self-help and self-care.Goldstein’s published research on CAM spans 30 years.During the late 1980s his research examined factors that led conventionally trained physicians to become involved with CAM. In the early 1990s, Goldstein spent two years conducting research at The Wellness Community, a support center for people with cancer that is receptive to many forms of CAM. In the mid-1990s, he was among the very first researchers supported by the Office of Alternative Medicine for his study of patient satisfaction with homeopathic treatment. More recently, he collaborated on a study to compare the impact of treatment confidence on pain and disability among patients with low-back pain treated by either physicians or chiropractors. His current work deals with the potential for CAM providers to assume a greater role in the provision of primary care in the nation’s health care system.
Goldstein is the author of two books: The Health Movement: Promoting Fitness in America (Macmillan 1992), and Alternative Health Care: Medicine, Miracle, or Mirage(Temple Univ. 1999). Both strive to understand changes in the way people seek to prevent and respond to serious illnesses, like cancer, as part of broader social and cultural changes in American society.
Goldstein received his doctorate from Brown University and has conducted research on a wide array of topics dealing with the behavior of people with chronic illness.
CHS 21-261 UCLA School of Public Helath Los Angeles CA 90095
Arpana Gupta, PhD
Arpana Gupta is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Neuroimaging Core at the UCLA G. Oppenheimer Center of Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience (CNSR); where she specializes in research that investigates the interactions between environmental and biological factors in shaping neurobiological phenotypes associated with stress-based diseases such as obesity and metabolic syndrome. Her current program of research, broadly defined, is based on developing a model that aims to understand the bidirectional interaction of the brain with those in the periphery (immune cells, gut microbiota-related metabolites), and the modification of these interactions by vulnerability or protective factors (adverse life events, sex, race, socioeconomic status [SES], resilience, diet) related to obesity and ingestive behaviors. More recently she has been investigating diet interventions in altering the brain-gut microbiome axis on health and disease. Another main area of interest is sex differences in central responses related to the brain-gut microbiome axis, as well as its relationship to various disease states. She applies advanced multivariate analytic techniques in order to integrate data from multiple neuroimaging sources, inflammatory markers, microbiome and metabolite profiles, and behavioral data, in order to determine the unique variance associated with altered brain gut microbiome axis in specific disorders. In 2016, she received a mentored K23 grant and in 2020 a R03 grant from the NIH NIDDK to investigate the brain-gut microbiome influences in obesity. She has also received funding from the AGA Rome Foundation, Biocodex, and pilot funds from the UCLA CURE/CTSI program.
Publications
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1v_1kl872tPQf/bibliography/46222127/public
10833 Le Conte Avenue Center for Health Sciences 42-210 Los Angeles CA 90095 United States
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Christina Ha, MD
Dr. Christina Ha graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and earned her medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She completed both her internal medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. Following GI fellowship, she spent a year as the Present-Levison Inflammatory Bowel Disease Fellow at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Subsequently, she joined the faculty at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as part of the Meyerhoff Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center prior to joining the UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases in 2013.
Her areas of clinical interest are in the inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Her research is also centered around Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis with a particular focus in the natural history and outcomes of IBD in the elderly.
100 UCLA Medical Plaza Suite 205 Los Angeles CA 90095
Ronald Harper, PhD
Dr. Harper received his doctorate from McMaster University (Ontario, Canada) in 1968, and was later a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anatomy at UCLA. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Neurobiology, UCLA and a member of the UCLA Brain Research Institute. The primary objective of his research program is to determine the neural mechanisms that underlie the control of breathing and cardiovascular action during sleep. His laboratory examines these mechanisms through basic studies of neural functioning in animals and physiological and neural imaging studies of humans with normal and disordered breathing during sleep. The conditions with aberrant breathing and cardiovascular action include the sudden death of infants during sleep in the first six months of life (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, SIDS, crib death), infants who are unable to sustain ventilation during sleep (Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome, CCHS, “Ondine’s Curse”), and adults with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) or heart failure; both of the latter conditions are characterized by severely impaired breathing and cardiovascular control during sleep. Dr. Harper’s publications include over 250 original articles, review articles, chapters and editorials; he has co-edited two books and participated in numerous national and international conferences and symposia. He is the P.I. on two grants, one on physiological development in SIDS and one on the neural control of cardiorespiratory function; he is also a subcontract P.I. on a SCOR Program grant on neural sites mediating obstructive sleep apnea (P.I. Jerome Siegel). He has served as a co-investigator on several grants, including a multi-site training program for basic sleep research (P.I. Michael Chase), a training program in oral-facial motor control (P.I. G. Bernard) and one dealing with sleep disordered breathing and the metabolic syndrome (P.I. M. Saad). He has served on the editorial board of several scientific journals and has served as a consulting reviewer on many leading journals, including Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Experimental Neurology, Journal of Applied Physiology, Journal of Physiology and American Journal of Physiology. Over the years, he has sponsored or co-sponsored several successful NIH K-series awards (Drs. M. Scher, D. Gozal, U. Rao, M. Woo, E. Pae). Dr. Harper’s principal teaching efforts have been in a professional school course, Functional Neuroanatomy for the first year UCLA Dental School class; he also participates in several Neuroscience and Neurobiology graduate courses throughout the year. Dr. Harper’s laboratory has continued to be as source of innovative procedures for teaching, including 3-D visualization of neural material, partially acquired from his own imaging research efforts, and development of video material on CD-ROM media used to demonstrate neural pathology. Over the years Dr. Harper has trained 12 graduate students and overseen the research for 23 postdoctoral fellows, as well as a number of Student Research Program undergraduates and students from the CARE Program. A substantial portion of his time has been devoted to professional and UCLA service, including the School of Dentistry Faculty Executive Committee, the School of Dentistry Committee, the Chancellor’s Committee on Vivarium Usage and the departmental Committee for Advancement to Professorial Rank.
UCLA Neurobiology 695 Charles Young Dr S Los Angeles CA 90095
Margaret Heitkemper, PhD
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
University of Washington School of Nursing 1959 NE Pacific Street Seattle WA 98195 United States
Marion Ho, MD
Dr. Ho graduated from the University of Hawaii Burns School of Medicine in 1990. She works in Woodland Hills, CA and 1 other locations and specializes in Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism, Internal Medicine. Dr. Ho is affiliated with Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and West Hills Hospital & Medical Center. She speaks Arabic, English and Spanish.
Wendy Ho, MD
Dr. Wendy Ho received her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and earned her medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She completed both her internal medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. During fellowship training, she also received a Masters of Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Ho finished her training in 2008 and subsequently joined the UCLA faculty as a clinician educator, where she specializes in seeing gastroenterology patients.
Dr. Ho has clinical expertise in functional bowel disorders including irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease, peptic ulcer disease, colorectal disorders, motility disorders, pancreatitis, colorectal cancer screening, colonoscopy, and endoscopy. Dr. Ho is board-certified in Gastroenterology and Internal Medicine and is a member of American Gastroenterological Association.
100 UCLA Medical Plaza #303 Los Angeles CA 90095
Daniel Holschneider, MD
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
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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Eunok Im, PhD
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Jonathan Jacobs, MD, PhD
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
Johanna Jarcho, PhD
My research program bridges the areas of clinical, development, and social affective neuroscience. We study brain function and social-cognitive processes (i.e., interacting with others) that evolve during adolescence. I build on concepts from mental health research by examining the boundaries between normal and abnormal behavior, to determine how such processes manifest when people are feeling rejected or accepted by others. I study these processes in healthy adolescents and adults, and those who have, or are at risk for, anxiety disorders. I am particularly interested in early childhood temperament and exposure to peer victimization, because these can lead to developing psychological disorders. One way I study this is with functional neuroimaging (fMRI). We image the brain when individuals think that their peers are evaluating them. This allows us to investigate brain function as it relates to social learning, prediction error processing, and fear of negative evaluation. Another focus of my current research uses eye tracking to assess whether anxious adolescents and adults pay more attention to different aspects of a social situation as they try to decide what their peers are thinking and feeling. Results from this work will establish whether paying more attention toward specific facial features predict the ability to accurately “read” social situations, and whether these patterns vary across development or psychological disorders.
UCLA Psych-Social 1285 Franz Hall Los Angeles CA 90095
Zhiguo Jiang, PhD
Swapna Joshi, PhD
Dr. Joshi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the G Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience (CNSR) at UCLA. She has worked with Dr. Chang (co-director of grant) on pathophysiologic mechanisms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) for the past 8 years. Her research focuses on bioinformatic analysis to study brain-gut-microbiome axis in IBS. Her research aims at understanding molecular mechanisms that mediate environmental effects on disease phenotype. Dr. Joshi’s expertise includes analysis and integration of gut microbiome, epigenetic and gene expression data, with specific training in the key research areas. She has published articles in various high profile journals including Nature. As a Co-Investigator on the CNSR’s NIH SCOR and PI on a NIH/CURE pilot seed grant, she is involved in conducting various studies geared at investigating sex differences and molecular pathways associated with IBS. Additionally, she collaborates extensively with groups sharing similar interests and produces several peer-reviewed publications from each project.
Publications
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1DiGdqyzem5Ai/bibliography/40052990/public
10833 Le Conte Ave CHS 42-210 MC737818 Los Angeles CA 90095-7378 United States
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Iordanis Karagiannidis, PhD
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.
Sahib Khalsa, MD, PhD
Dr. Khalsa received a B.S. in Psychology from SUNY Stony Brook in 2002. He graduated from the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Iowa, receiving M.D. and Ph.D. (neuroscience) degrees in 2009. He completed his residency training in Psychiatry at UCLA in 2013, serving as the program Chief Resident and Chief Resident in the UCLA Anxiety Disorders Clinic. At that time, he joined the department as a faculty member in the Division of Adult Psychiatry at UCLA, becoming an Assistant Professor in Residence in 2014.
Dr. Khalsa’s research examines how people feel their heartbeat, how the human brain maps cardiac sensation, and whether there is dysfunctional cross talk between the heart and brain in psychiatric and cardiovascular illnesses. To approach these questions, his studies have examined the effects of aging, focal brain injury, cardiac dysfunction, and long-term meditation practice on awareness of the heartbeat. Ongoing projects examine the neural basis of cardiac sensation, the neural basis of dysfunctional heart-brain communication in anorexia nervosa, and the impact of implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) on awareness of the heartbeat. These studies aim to ultimately answer the question “How can we develop new treatments that re-establish a functional dialogue between the heart and brain?”
Dr. Khalsa’s clinical expertise focuses on the assessment and treatment of anxiety disorders. As a faculty member Dr. Khalsa served as Associate Director of the UCLA Anxiety Disorders Clinic, supervising resident physicians in the treatment of anxiety disorders. As founding Director of the Healthy Hearts Behavioral Medicine Program, an interdisciplinary endeavor started with the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center, he specializes in treating anxiety and mood disorders in individuals with cardiovascular disease and who have received ICDs. He also worked as an attending psychiatrist in the UCLA OCD Intensive Outpatient Program.
In February 2015, Dr. Khalsa joined the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the Director of Clinical Studies, and as an Assistant Professor (tenure track) on the Faculty of Community Medicine at the University of Tulsa.