The University of Arizona

Department of Physiology - The University of Arizona

Login
Faculty

Ann Baldwin

Research Professor

Contact Information

Address: Department of Physiology
College of Medicine
University of Arizona

Tucson, AZ 85724-5051
Phone: (520) 318-7170
Email: abaldwin@u.arizona.edu


Website: http://www.mind-body-science.com

Research Interests

I am interested in the effects of environmental stress on animal and human physiology and in ways of reducing the deleterious effects of stress. I am especially interested in the validity of animal models in research, particularly the use of rodents, including transgenic and knock-out mice. Rodents are extremely sensitive to the environment in institutional animal facilities, and factors such as noise, ultrasound, cage size and cage enrichment (or lack of) significantly affects animal physiology, and hence experimental data. In my research I am investigating the effects of these environmental factors on cardiovascular function (heart rate, blood pressure, heart rate variability) using radiotelemetry, responses of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (automated blood sampling technique for continuous measurement of corticosterone), microvascular permeability (intravascular injection of fluorescent tracers and intravital microscopy) and intestinal epithelial and microvascular integrity (electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry). A major goal of this work is to obtain data for improving the design of animal facilities and animal care procedures in order to provide valid and robust animal models for research.

A second goal is to determine the cellular mechanisms mediating the effects of environmental stress on the autonomic nervous system and the HPA-axis.

A third goal is to investigate the efficacy of energy healing in reducing the effects of stress in rodents, monkeys and humans. Energy healing is based upon the belief that changes in the "life force" of the body, including electromagnetic fields, affect human health and can promote healing. I am most familiar with the form of energy healing called Reiki, which is used in some hospitals in the USA, to reduce pain and to speed up the healing process. Two additional techniques that I use for Reikii experiments are measurements of peripheral blood flow (laser Doppler perfusion imager) and measurements of the skin conductance response. I teach Reiki and Biofeedback techniques to the general public as Mind-Body-Science (www.mind-body-science.com).

Graduate Program Affiliations

Biomedical Engineering

Physiological Sciences

Publications

Baldwin AL, Wagers C and Schwartz GE. Apr 2008. Reiki improves heart rate homeostasis in laboratory rats. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medic, 14(4):417-422

Alberding JP,, Heimark RL and Baldwin AL. Feb 2008. Effects of transient pressure gradient on endothelial F-actin and beta-catenin. Journal of Medical and Biological Sciences, 2(1):1-11

Goriely AR, Baldwin AL and Secomb TW. Jul 2007. Transient diffusion of albumin in aortic walls: Effects of binding to medial elastin layers. American Journal of Physiology: Heart and Circulat, 292: H2195-H2201

Cudilo E, Al Naemi H, Marmorstein L and Baldwin AL. Feb 2007. Knockout mice: is it just genetics? Effects of enrichment on fibulin-4+/- mice. PLos ONE, 2(2):e229

Baldwin AL, Schwartz GE and Hopp DH. Jan 2007. Are investigators aware of environmental noise in animal facilities and that such noise may affect experimental data?. J. Amer. Assoc. for Laboratory Animal Science, 46(1):45-51

Baldwin AL and Bell IR. Jan 2007. Effect of noise on microvascular integrity in laboratory rats. J. Amer. Assoc. for Laboratory Animal Science, 46(1):58-65

Burke TK Teng X Patel RP Baldwin AL. Jul 2006. Effects of S-nitrosation on hemoglobin-induced microvascular damage. Antioxid Redox Signal, 8:1093-101

Baldwin AL. Jan 2006. Mast cell activation by stress. Methods Mol Biol, 315:349-60

Displaying 1 - 8 of 46     << first < prev | [1] | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | next > last >>

Faculty information is maintained by the BIO5 Institute.

Faculty may edit their information by logging into BioGate.