2000-

With her colleagues, she showed that treatment of nude mice with Ginkgo biloba extract significantly reduced the size of breast tumor xenografts. Knowing that saw palmetto extract is commonly used for prostate health, she investigated its effect on prostate cancer and showed that in vitro cell proliferation and cancer xenografts were decreased. In addition to reduced cell proliferation and increased apoptosis, she identified a novel cell death mechanism that was different from apoptosis, necrosis, autophagy, and mitotic catastrophy. She is currently characterizing this new cell death mechanism. Dr. Amri focuses her other line of research on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying stress and relaxation responses. Her work was the first to show that Mind-Body Medicine interventions were capable of lowering cortisol and DHEAS in medical students subjected to chronic academic stress. Following these findings, she used acupuncture on the chronic cold stress rat model. Acupuncture was found to play a role on the HPA axis regulation by targeting CRH, ACTH, circulating NPY, and corticosterone levels(cortisol in humans)that were reduced significantly. Behaviorally, the treated animals showed less anxiety and depression in the elevated maze and swim tests. This work is now translated to human subjects. The cold pressor stress protocol is used to assess stress biomarkers before and after acupuncture treatment administered while the subject is undergoing MRI brain scanning and blood collection.

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