Grand rounds – Integrative Behavioral Interventions, Mindfulness Training for Primary Care and Acupuncture Points

This is a special grand rounds that consists of three 15-minute mini lectures from the Osher Research Fellows about their current projects.

Cost: Free. CME credit available.

Jacklyn Foley’s presentation title: Developing Integrative Behavioral Interventions to Promote the Health of Older People with HIV

Michael Datko’s presentation description: Mindfulness Training for Primary Care (MTPC) is an eight-week, trauma-informed, mindfulness-based program designed for primary care patients to enhance chronic illness self-management, reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, while motivating health behavior change. We hypothesized that MTPC would lead to increased brain response in brain areas that process interoception and emotion regulation in patients with anxiety and depression. We used two functional MRI tasks before and after the MTPC intervention to study neural mechanisms of mindfulness-induced behavior change.

EunMee Yang’s presentation description: The field of acupuncture research has grown and progressed significantly over the past few decades. However, fundamental gaps in knowledge and methodological issues substantially hinder further progress. One major barrier to progress is a lack of clarity on the scientific basis of acupuncture points or acupoints. Although the concept of acupoints is central to the theory and practice of acupuncture, it is largely unclear whether acupoints “exist” and what physiological effects are induced locally at the site of needling. In this presentation, Yang will share an overview of prior literature, recent developments from animal research, and her own clinical and translational research work focused on the physiological basis of acupoints.