WesternU’s Pumerantz Lecture to focus on integrative health
The 10th annual Dr. Philip Pumerantz Distinguished Lectureship will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, September 20, 2018 in Western University of Health Sciences Health Education Center Lecture Hall I, 701 E. Second St., Pomona, California 91766. The lecture will be streamed live online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJyOma81fkA
Yi-Yuan Tang, PhD, will present “The Neuroscience of Integrative Health.” Tang is Presence Fellow for the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and Presidential Endowed Chair in Neuroscience and Professor of Psychological Sciences and Internal Medicine at Texas Tech University. He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Sciences and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.
Tang studies how experiences such as cultures, learning and training affect attention, emotion, decision-making, self-control, health and well-being using psychosocial, physiological, neuroimaging and genetic analysis. He developed a novel preventive intervention — Integrative Body-Mind Training (IBMT) — and has studied its mechanisms and effects in large randomized clinical trials in healthy and patient populations since the 1990s. His work has shown that brief training can significantly reduce stress hormones, and improve immune function, cognitive performance and brain plasticity.
In the 1950s, the U.S. spent 2 to 3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care. Now medical costs have risen to almost 20 percent of the GDP without the expected results.
“One major reason is that we mainly focus on disease treatment rather than prevention, and we believe symptom relief is equal to health and well-being,” Tang said. “To address these issues, we propose an interdisciplinary and innovative integrative health model. Integrative health includes three components: conventional medicine that focuses on disease treatment, complementary and alternative health care such as mindfulness, yoga and acupuncture, and behavioral and nutritional approaches to promote health and wellness. Integrative health requires changes in mindset, brain networks and habits using novel neuroscience approaches. I will provide scientific evidence to reveal the neuroscience of integrative health and how our brain and mind affect our health and well-being.”
The lectureship, in honor of WesternU’s founder and president emeritus Dr. Philip Pumerantz, is made possible by a generous donation from Drs. Elaine and Daljit Sarkaria of Orange, California. The lecture is free and open to the public. Click here for more information: https://www.westernu.edu/lecture/
“It is my great honor to be invited to speak at the Pumerantz Lecture,” Tang said. “I look forward to visiting campus and meeting faculty and students for potential collaboration.”
