Preface Lora Kasselman 1. Microbiome and motor neuron diseases Sugato Banerjee 2. Intervention, prevention, and the brain: prebiotics, probiotics, and fecal transplants Raja Mazumder 3. The microbiota-gut-brain axis: focus on the fundamental communication pathways Cristina Giaroni 4. Microbiome composition and locations Eugene B. Chang
Dr. Lora Kasselman is a scientist with 19 years of experience in academia and industry, with her research focusing on neurobiology and inflammation. During and after her doctoral training in Neuropsychology, she conducted research on vascular inflammation in diseases such as scleroderma and peripheral neuropathy. Dr. Kasselman's background training is in behavioral neuroscience and her research projects reflect an interest in inflammation in general with a special interest in neurovascular inflammation. Throughout the years she has gained extensive experience in designing and conducting behavioral experiments. In addition, she has many years of experience in vascular, neuronal, and inflammation analyses using histological and molecular techniques such as immunohistochemistry and protein detection. Recently, through collaborative work with the Department of Statistics, Dr. Kasselman's interests shifted towards the use of publicly available data sets including the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for analysis of probiotic consumption behavior and outcomes such as cardiovascular disease and cognitive dysfunction. In order to further her knowledge in statistical analyses of large complex data sets she is currently enrolled in the CUNY School of Public Health's Epidemiology and Biostatistics MPH program where she is working with several faculty on microbiome data sets.