Center unites mind, body studies

By Robin Irey
Daily Bruin Contributor

UCLA’s Mind-Body Collaborative Research Center opened last
week as one of the nation’s few institutes that study the
mind’s jurisdiction over biological reactions and vice
versa.

Scientists have traditionally studied the mind and body
separately, and the center seeks to contribute research to promote
this new mesh of disciplines.

“We are looking to make the people at UCLA who are doing
this research more visible to the public and also to each other so
they are able to collaborate on their findings,” said Dr.
Bruce Naliboff, psychiatry and biobehavioral science professor and
the center’s co-chair.

The center is composed of faculty specializing in neuroscience,
psychology, digestive diseases, pediatrics, psychiatry and
gynecology.

The Neuropsychiatric Institute and the Center of
Psychoneuroimmunology will contribute to the center’s
research.

UCLA competed with campuses across the nation for one of five
$10 million grants from the National Institute of Health to fund a
mind-body center, but came in sixth place to universities such as
Stanford and Ohio State University.

“The insiders got it, well-deserved,” said Dr.
Emeran Mayer, head of the UCLA Neurocenteric Disease Program and
director of the center. “Since we’re newcomers, I think
we did well.”

The UCLA center is financed by existing grants. Costs have been
reduced since NPI is providing the space and administrative support
needed, Mayer said.

With hopes for a grant from NIH next year, the center is
planning how to make its services and research more accessible to
the public.

Advancements that allow brain activities associated with
thoughts and emotions to be visualized include positron emission
tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging.

“Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience, immunology and
neurophysiology now provide an unprecedented framework to study the
effects of the mind on the body,” Mayer said.

While faculty members are the only ones involved in research,
Mayer said graduate students would be a welcome addition.

To attract interested students, the center will begin offering a
series of symposiums on different topics this fall. These
gatherings will assess topics such as stress’s role in
sickness and the validity of acupuncture as a remedy.

Naliboff said the center’s agenda will include an annual
national conference on the mind-body connection, drawing
specialists from around the world to offer those involved a chance
to re-evaluate their own research and gain insight from
contemporaries.

The center is also entertaining the prospect of publishing a
series of books based on individual conferences.

The series will be modeled after “The Biological Basis for
Mind-Body Interactions,” co-edited by Mayer.