Gary E. Schwartz - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): The goal of the Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science is to advance basic science and clinical research on biofield/energy healing therapies through rigorously controlled, collaborative experiments and sophisticated training of new investigators. The research is focused on developing standardized bioassay (cellular biology), psychophysiological, and biophysical markers of biofield effects and applying these markers to outcome measures of recovery in surgical patients. The Center integrates the psychophysiological and biophysical research of the Human Energy Systems Laboratory (Dr. Schwartz) with the bioassay research of the Institute for Frontier Science (Dr. Rubik. The overarching integrative hypothesis is that biofield therapies such as Therapeutic Touch, QiGong, and Johrei involve a common set of bioelectromagnetic and psychosocial mechanisms that together impact cellular functioning, reducing pain and increasing wound healing. Specific aims of the Center are: (1) to conduct three exploratory projects with senior investigators who are (a) accomplished in physics, biophysics, cellular biology, psychophysiology, medicine, and surgery, and (b) skilled in interdisciplinary research, collaborating with a team of accomplished CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) practitioners in biofield therapies, (2) to create a nurturing integrative research infrastructure that combines methodological and statistical skills and services with research, education and training experiences for new as well as established investigators, (3) to establish an expanded base of collaborative research with scientists and clinicians (both conventional and CAM) locally, nationally, and worldwide - including other centers and laboratories in frontier medicine - and provide them with standardized bioassay and biophysical markers, and (4) to provide a credible resource for scientific information in biofield science through a dynamic website that not only provides information about research findings published, in press, and on-going, but also provides research training opportunities for distant learning through web-based video conferencing of actual ongoing experiments, experimental methods, and research seminars. Five collaborative Cores support the Center projects: Administrative, Methodology & Statistics, Biofield Practitioner, Bioassay, and Biophysics & Psychophysiology. The bioassay project focuses on the effects of therapeutic touch on growth and motility of bacterial cultures. The two psychophysiology and biophysics projects focus on Johrei and Qigong, one applied to recovery from surgery (Dr. Hamilton). Cross-site replication is built into the projects. The research experience of the senior investigators, combined with the carefully constructed collaborative research designs, should insure that the findings will be published in mainstream journals and that successful RO1's and R21's will be generated by new as well as experienced investigators.

The Energy Balance Phenotpying Core provides services to the members ofthe NYORC and to other eligible investigators. These services include consultation, assessment of energy intake, energy expenditure, and body composition. The Core is actively engaged in phenotyping mouse and rat models of obesity and is in a unique position to provide the stated services. The development of obesity in animal models is dependent on hyperphagia; exaniples are leptin and leptin receptor deficient rodents. The hyperphagia is dependent on influences from the hypothalamus, as targeted ablation of neuropeptide expression partially corrects this defect in ingestive behavior. Two of the NYORC Cores, Energy Balance Phenotyping and the Molecular Biology/Molecular Genetics Core, have done a series of ontogenetic studies to correlate the onset of hyperphagia with overexpression of a hypothalamic neuropeptide, NPY. The Molecular Biology/Molecular Genetics Core provided the breeders and the genotyping assays to determine gene dosage for leptin receptor mutation which the Energy Balance Phenotyping Core performed measures of caloric intake. These studies provided a temporal relationship between over-expression of an orexigenic peptide and hyperphagia, consistent with the hypothesis that increased activity of NPY neurons is partly responsible for the obesity/diabetes syndrome of leptin and leptin receptor deficiency. This type of collaboration between investigators in the Molecular Biology/Molecular Genetics core and the Energy Balance Phenotyping core are expected to continue and expand over the next 5 years of investigation. The collective experience ofthe Core's staff provides a broad range of expertise in ingestive behavior, metabolic physiology and body composition.