Dr. Shivkumar is a physician scientist who serves as the director of the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center & EP Programs (since its establishment in 2002). His is a graduate of the UCLA STAR Program (class of 2000) and his field of specialization is interventional cardiac electrophysiology. He leads a large group at UCLA (comprising a diverse group of fifteen faculty members, several trainees and sixty staff + allied health professionals) involved in clinical care, teaching, research and biomedical innovation. The team provides state of the art clinical care, has developed several innovative therapies (e.g. epicardial ablation, neuromodulation) for the non-pharmacological management of cardiac arrhythmias and other cardiac interventions. The team has a major focus on mechanistic research on the neural control of the mammalian heart. Dr. Shivkumar also serves as the director and chief of the UCLA Cardiovascular Interventional Programs. Dr. Shivkumar’s research work relates to mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias in humans especially the role of the autonomic nervous system and his research work transcends the perspective of a single organ and has implications for neurovisceral sciences in general. The UCLA Neurocardiology Research Program of Excellence was established by him as the specialized research arm of the Arrhythmia Center in 2014. Dr. Shivkumar and his colleagues are actively involved in human mechanistic studies, development of new intellectual property and medical technology for cardiovascular therapeutics. His IP has been incorporated into medical devices that are now FDA approved and in clinical use. He serves as an editor for several journals in cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology, and is a peer reviewer for several basic science and clinical journals. He also serves as a peer reviewer for the NIH in evaluating cardiac arrhythmia & neuroscience research. His research has been supported by grants from the American Heart Association, the Doris Duke Foundation, private donors and from the NIH (continuously since 2006). Currently Dr. Shivkumar oversees a 15-university NIH consortium on neural control of the heart. Dr. Shivkumar has mentored several STAR awardees and has received several teaching awards. He has been appointed to serve on the board of examiners for Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Section of the ABIM (American Board of Internal Medicine). He has been elected to the membership of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and serves as the institutional representative of UCLA for the ASCI. He was elected as an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London) in 2016 & President of the ISAN (International Society of Autonomic Neuroscience) in 2019.
https://www.mcip.ucla.edu/indiv-faculty-page/?id=3385
http://www.neuroscience.ucla.edu/profile/shivkumar-kalyanam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6NKp2Rc7c8
http://arrhythmia.ucla.edu/
https://www.the-asci.org/controllers/asci/AsciProfileController.php?pid=…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Shivkumar+K[Author]
Biography
Steroid synthesis and action in the vertebrate CNS. My laboratory is interested in the hormonal control of brain and behavior. Steroid hormones influence the CNS in diverse ways, from regulating neuronal transcription, to influencing cell signaling pathways, to direct modulation of neurotransmitter receptor ion channels. The traditional view is that neurally active steroids come from the gonads and adrenals, but we and others have evidence that in some cases, steroids can be synthesized directly in the brain. We are testing this hypothesis in songbirds that have a variety of well-characterized endpoints of steroid action on brain including organizing neural circuits developmentally, activating circuits and stimulating persistent neural plasticity in adults. We utilize molecular, biochemical and neuroanatomical approaches to explore the expression, activity and function of steroid synthetic enzymes. In addition, we do field research on birds, including one called the Golden-collared manakin that lives in the rainforests of Panama. Males of this species have a remarkable, acrobatic and noisy courtship display. We study how hormones act on the brain, spinal cord and peripheral muscles to give males the ability to perform these elaborate displays.
Publications
A selected list of publications:
Pradhan Devaleena S, Newman Amy E M, Wacker Douglas W, Wingfield John C, Schlinger Barney A, Soma Kiran K Aggressive interactions rapidly increase androgen synthesis in the brain during the non-breeding season Hormones and behavior, 2010; 57(4-5): 381-9.
Feng Ni Y, Katz Amnon, Day Lainy B, Barske Julia, Schlinger Barney A Limb muscles are androgen targets in an acrobatic tropical bird Endocrinology, 2010; 151(3): 1042-9.
Remage-Healey Luke, Coleman Melissa J, Oyama Randi K, Schlinger Barney A Brain estrogens rapidly strengthen auditory encoding and guide song preference in a songbird Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010; 107(8): 3852-7.
London Sarah E, Remage-Healey Luke, Schlinger Barney A Neurosteroid production in the songbird brain: a re-evaluation of core principles Frontiers in neuroendocrinology, 2009; 30(3): 302-14.
Salwiczek Lucie H, Emery Nathan J, Schlinger Barney, Clayton Nicola S The development of caching and object permanence in Western scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica): which emerges first? Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983), 2009; 123(3): 295-303.
Remage-Healey Luke, Maidment Nigel T, Schlinger Barney A Forebrain steroid levels fluctuate rapidly during social interactions Nature neuroscience, 2008; 11(11): 1327-34.
Schlinger Barney A, Day Lainy B, Fusani Leonida Behavior, natural history and neuroendocrinology of a tropical bird General and comparative endocrinology, 2008; 157(3): 254-8.
Katz Amnon, Mirzatoni Anahid, Zhen Yin, Schlinger Barney A Sex differences in cell proliferation and glucocorticoid responsiveness in the zebra finch brain The European journal of neuroscience, 2008; 28(1): 99-106.
London Sarah E, Monks D Ashley, Wade Juli, Schlinger Barney A Widespread capacity for steroid synthesis in the avian brain and song system Endocrinology, 2006; 147(12): 5975-87.