The Gut-Stress Connection: A Conversation with Researcher Arpana Church, PhD

Can the gut microbiome help determine how resilient a person is? New research sheds light on this fascinating topic. Arpana Church, PhD, who is a neuroscientist at UCLA’s Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center, and her colleagues set out to explore the complex interaction between the gut microbiome and stress resilience. In this interview, Church describes the research and future implications.

About the Expert

Arpana Church, PhD (née Gupta), is a leading figure in medical research on brain-gut-microbiome interactions and stress-related diseases like obesity. With a PhD in psychology and a clinical internship from Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical Center, her research aims to integrate brain and gut systems to understand obesity mechanisms and related behaviors. Funded by NIH, including recent grants from NIMHD and NIA, Church has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and is featured in the Netflix documentary "Hack Your Health: Secrets of the Gut." Her work explores novel pathways in the brain-gut-microbiome system, socio-cultural stress impacts, and interventions for obesity.