Contact Information

Center for Neurovisceral Sciences & Women's Health
11301 Wilshire Boulevard
Building 115, Room 223
Los Angeles, CA 90073
On-campus mail: BVA Building 115, Room 223 179247
Tel: (310) 312-9276
Fax: (310) 794-2864
E-mail: emayer@ucla.edu
Web: www.cure.med.ucla.edu, www.uclacns.org, www.uclamindbody.org

Biosketch

Dr. Mayer has a longstanding interest in clinical and neurobiology aspects of brain-gut interactions in health and disease. He has published more than 110 original articles, numerous review articles and chapters, co-edited two books and organized several interdisciplinary symposia in this area. Dr. Mayer has made seminal contributions to the characterization of physiologic alterations in patients with functional disorders, in particular in the area of visceral pain, stress-induced visceral hyperalgesia and altered brain responses. He has two active R01 grants, one on basic mechanisms of NMDA receptors in visceral nociception, the other on brain and perceptual responses to visceral stimulation. He is P.I. on a subcontract of another RO1 grant on the role of proteinase-activated receptors in neuronal activation, and co-investigator on a RO1 grant (P.I. Lin Chang) dealing with neuroendocrine alteration in IBS and fibromyalgia. Dr. Mayer has served on the editorial boards of the leading journals in digestive diseases, including Gastroenterology, Gut, Digestion and the American Journal of Physiology. He has served as reviewer for a wide range of medical and neuroscience journals and as ad hoc reviewer for national and international funding agencies. He has also served on ad hoc NIH study sections.

Dr. Mayer has been involved in an administrative and leadership function in several large interdisciplinary programs at UCLA. He is the Director of the UCLA Center for Neurovisceral Sciences & Women's Health (CNS), a translational research program recently funded by the NIH that is currently viewed as the leading integrated research program in the world in the area of functional digestive disorders. Senior investigators within the CNS perform a wide range of basic and clinical research activities in the area of neurovisceral interactions in health and disease. Research efforts of this program include the study of cellular and molecular mechanisms of chemo- and mechanotransduction of primary afferent nerves; animal studies on stress modulation of visceral pain and associated autonomic responses; human physiology studies on cerebral, autonomic, neuroendocrine, and perceptual responses to visceral stimulation; and health outcomes, quality of life, and epidemiological studies in populations suffering from chronic gastrointestinal disorders. The Center includes more than 15 M.D. and Ph.D. researchers who are supported by individual RO1 grants. Dr. Mayer is the Chair of the recently established UCLA Collaborative Centers for Integrative Medicine, a multidisciplinary and interdepartmental clinical and research program related to different aspects of integrative medicine. Dr. Mayer has trained close to 20 postdoctoral fellows and has played an active role in promoting an integrative model of mind/brain/body interactions in his clinical practice, lectures and publications. Along these lines, he has organized two seminal interdisciplinary symposia on different aspects of mind/brain/body interactions and has published a volume of Progress in Brain Research on this topic.

Selected References

Berman S, Chang L, Suyenobu B, Derbyshire SGW, Fitzgerald L, Mandelkern M, Hamm L, Vogt B Naliboff BD, Mayer EA. Condition-specific deactivation of emotional motor system in IBS patients. Gastroenterology. 2002.

Marvizon JC, McRoberts JA, Ennes HS, Song B, Wang X, Jinton L, Corneliussen B, Mayer EA. Two N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in rat dorsal root ganglia with different subunit composition and localization. Journal of Comparative Neurology. 2002; 446: 325-341.

Steinhoff M, Vergnolle N, Young SH, Tognetto M, Amadesi S, Ennes HS, Trevisani M, Hollenberg MD, Wallace JL, Caughey GH, Mitchell SE, Williams LM, Geppetti P, Mayer EA, Bunnett NW. Agonists of proteinase-activated receptor 2 induce inflammation by a neurogenic mechanism. Nature Medicine. 2000; 6:151-158.