Emeran Mayer

Emeran Anton Mayer (born July 26, 1950, in Traunstein, West Germany) is a gastroenterologist, lecturer, author, editor, neuroscientist, documentary filmmaker and a professor in the Departments of Medicine, Physiology and Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is a pioneer of medical research into brain-gut interactions

Early years Mayer became interested in mind–brain–body interactions in health and chronic disease as a college student at LMU Munich, which inspired his decision to go to medical school at LMU Munich's Medical School. His interest in documentary filmmaking galvanized this fascination and resulted in his journeys to the Yanomami tribes in the Orinoco region and the Asmat people in Irian Jaya. There, he filmed and studied native healers while exploring his suspicion that the interactions between the gut and the brain transcend culture and time.

Career

Mayer's research career began at the Institute of Physiology in Munich, with a dissertation on the mechanisms by which the brain affects coronary blood flow in the heart during psychological stress. After moving to the US, he completed his specialty training as a gastroenterologist at UCLA and from then on focused his work on basic, translational, and clinical aspects of brain-gut interactions. He has 40 years of experience studying clinical and neurobiological aspects of how the digestive and nervous systems interact in health and disease. In the United States, Mayer's research has continuously been funded by federal grants from National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants.

Mayer is a Distinguished Research Professor and the Executive Director of the Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress, and Co-director of the CURE: Digestive Diseases Research Center at UCLA. He has published more than 370 scientific papers (h-index 115), and co edited 3 scientific books. He is the recipient of the 2016 David McLean award from the American Psychosomatic Society and the 2017 Ismar Boas Medal from the German Society of Gastroenterology and Metabolic Disease.

In addition to his longstanding research into the pathophysiology of irritable bowel syndrome, Mayer has researched Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, food addiction, obesity, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn's disease. His research efforts into these brain-gut diseases have been closely linked to his strong belief in the One Health concept, which closely links individual health, with health of the gut microbiome, soil microbiome, and health of the planet.

Mayer has a longstanding interest in ancient healing traditions. He has personally practiced different mind-based strategies, including Zen meditation, Ericksonian hypnosis, and autogenic training. His treatment approach to patients is based on an integrative medicine concept of the close bidirectional interactions between the mind, brain, body and environment.

Books

Basic And Clinical Aspects Of Chronic Abdominal Pain New York: Elsevier, 1993. The Biological Basis Of Mind Body Interactions Progress in Brain Research, Vol. 122, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2000. Functional Chronic Pain Syndromes: Similarities And Differences In Clinical Presentation And Pathophysiology Seattle, IASP Press, 2009 The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Astonishing Dialogue Taking Place in Our Bodies Impacts Health, Weight, and Mood HarperCollins, 2016. The Gut-Immune Connection: How Understanding Why We are Sick Can Help Us Regain Our Health HarperCollins, 2021 The Mind-Gut-Immune Connection: Understanding How Food Impacts Our Mind, Our Microbiome, and Our Immunity HarperCollins, 2023 Interconnected Plates: A Mediterranean-Inspired Gut Healthy Cookbook, 2023

Movies

In Search of Balance, 2018. Associate Producer Interconnected Planet, 2021. Producer and Co-Director Personal life

Mayer lives in Topanga, California. He is married to Minou Mayer and has one son, E. Dylan Mayer.