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| About Us : | Faculty : | Taylor |
Anna Taylor, Ph.D.
Professor in Residence, Department of Neurobiology (formerly Anatomy and Cell Biology), UCLA.
Research Psysiologist & Chief, Alcoholism Research Laboratory, West Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Associate Member, Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute
Research Interests
Over the years, Dr. Taylor has conducted directed to elucidating CNS mechanisms underlying the effects of stress, hormones, and drugs on neuroendocrine and neuroimmune functions in collaboration with Dr. Chiappelli and Drs. Hodgson and Yirmiya, two international fellows sponsored by the Cousins Center for PNI. This research has involved both developmental and adult paradigms. Their recent studies have identified a consistent pattern of enhanced neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to stress and psychoactive drugs in adult rats that were exposed to ethanol in utero, which replicates to a large extent the clinical conditions of fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects. Recognizing that prenatal factors affect neural and endocrine systems, which are intimately involved in immunological responses, in further work they demonstrated adverse effects of alcohol on immune competence following prenatal as well as adult exposure. Interestingly, these outcomes were more pronounced in male than in female subjects. Their recent studies in collaboration with Dr. Beylin on brain-immune interactions demonstrated blunting of the febrile and sickness behavior componenets of the acute-phase response to challenge with ecnotoxin and IL-1B, a proinflammatory cytokine induced by endotoxin. Furthermore, they have provided evidence that a reduction in hypothalamic cytokines, in particular IL-1B, accompanied the blunted febrile response (Taylor et al, 2002). In order to generalize the findings to another condition that induces brain cytokines, they have recently begun to study the febrile and sickness behavior components of the acute-phase response to traumatic brain injury.
Current research
Alcoholism and Neuro-Endocrine-Immune Interactions
Principal Investigator: Anna N. Taylor
Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Type: Merit Review Period: 10/01/01 – 09/30/06
The major goals fo this continuing project are to define the neural and / or hormonal mechanisms for the attenuated febrile response to endotoxin in adult alcohol-consuming rats.
Recent publications
Taylor AN, Chiappelli F and Yirmiya R. Fetal alcohol syndrome and immunity. In Psychoneurimmunoloy, Ader R, Felten DL and Cohen N, Eds., 3rd Edition, Vol. 2, pp 49-71, San Diego, Ca: Academic Press, 2001.
Romeo HE, Tio DL, Rahman SU, Chiappelli F and Taylor AN. The glossopharyngeal nerve as a new pathway in immune-to-brain interactions: relevance to neuroimmune surveillance of the oral cavity. J. Neuroimmunol, 115: 91-100, 2001.
Hodgson DM, Chiappelli F and Taylor AN. Experimentally-induced oral cancer in the F344 rat: effect of stress exposure. Intl. J. Oral Biology, 25: 1-8, 2000.
Hodgson DM, Yirmiya R, Chiappelli F and Taylor AN. Intracerebral IL-1beta impairs response to tumor invasion: involvement of adrenal catechoamines. Brain Res, 816: 200-208, 1999.
Yirmiya R, Chiappelli F, Tio DL, Tritt SH and Taylor AN. Effect of fetal alcohol exposure and pair feeding on LPS-induced secretion of TNFalpha and corticosterone. Alcohol, 15: 327-335, 1998.
Anna Taylor
Neurobiology
38-133 BRI Bldg
38-113 BRI Bldg
mail code: 176318
1430 phone: 310-825-9856, 310-478-3711
fax: 310-825-2224
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