Intergenerational Effects of Adversity on Mind-Body Health: Pathways Through the Gut-Brain Axis
Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 2:00 pm EST
Children’s early experiences impact their mental and physical health across the lifespan. Such early experiences can become biologically and psychologically embedded within an individual, contributing to intergenerational transmission of adversity. This presentation investigates the neurobiological mechanisms via which early experiences impact children’s mental and physical health, and how those experiences may be transmitted to impact future generations. Dr. Callaghan will present data from several studies demonstrating how early life adversity gets ‘under the skin’ to influence children’s emotional health, especially anxiety, and their physical health, paying particular attention to gastrointestinal distress, which is tightly connected to emotional wellbeing. Zooming in on the gastrointestinal and oral microbiomes, she will show how adversity impacts biological systems tied to emotional and physical wellbeing, and how the gastrointestinal microbiome is linked to emotional health indirectly through the brain. She will discuss how study of the brain-gut axis can open up new avenues for the prevention and intervention for anxiety disorders and other mental health problems.
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Dr. Bridget Callaghan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). At UCLA, Dr. Callaghan directs the Brain & Body Lab in the Department of Psychology, and she also heads the Mental Disorders and Pain research theme at the Goodman Luskin Microbiome Center. She graduated from the University of New South Wales, Australia, with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology, and completed her master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and her doctorate in Psychology at the same institution. Her subsequent postdoctoral training in neuroimaging and child development was completed at Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, and was funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council postdoctoral training grant from Australia, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Young Investigator grant, and then a career development award (K99) from the National Institutes of Mental Health. At UCLA, Dr. Callaghan is generously funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, and the National Institutes of Aging. Together with her students, Dr. Callaghan examines how early life experiences get under the skin to influence mental and physical health. She takes a multigeneration approach in her research, and pays particular attention to the brain-gut- microbiome axis because of its strong links to health outcomes.
Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D., serves as the President & CEO of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the largest private funder of mental health research grants. Dr. Borenstein developed the Emmy-nominated public television program “Healthy Minds,” and serves as host and executive producer of the series. The program, broadcast nationwide, is available online, and focuses on topics in psychiatry in order to educate the public, reduce stigma and offer a message of hope. Dr. Borenstein served as Editor-in-Chief of Psychiatric News, the newspaper of the American Psychiatric Association from 2012 - 2023.
Dr. Borenstein is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and serves as the Chair of the Section of Psychiatry at the Academy. He also has served as the President of the New York State Psychiatric Association. Dr. Borenstein earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard and his medical degree at New York University.
