2019 AGA – Rome Foundation Research Award Recipient
Principle Investigator: Arpana Gupta, PhD
Assistant Professor and Director of the Neuroimaging Core at the UCLA G. Oppenheimer Center of Neurobiological Stress and Resilience (CNSR), ), in the Dept. of Medicine Division of Digestive Diseases, Los Angeles, CA
Dr. Gupta is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Neuroimaging Core at the UCLA G. Oppenheimer Center of Neurobiological Stress and Resilience (CNSR), in the Dept. of Medicine, Division of Digestive Diseases. Dr. Gupta specializes in research investigating interactions between environmental and biological factors in contributing to stress-based diseases such as obesity. Her current program of research, broadly defined, is based on developing an obesity model that aims to understand the mechanisms associated with the bi-directional interactions of the brain with those in the periphery (immune cells, gutmicrobiota-related metabolites). She is interested in investigating the modification of these brain-gut interactions by vulnerability factors re: adverse life events, sex, race or protective factors re: resilience in obesity. Other main areas of research interest include sex differences in central responses to stress; the relationship between altered ingestive behaviors and brain gut interactions; and the modification of these relationships after targeted interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy, diet, lifestyle, exercise interventions.