Dr. Jeremy Richman has extensive research experience that spans the range from neuroscience and neuropsychopharmacology, to cardiovascular biology, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, immunology and inflammation, and kidney disease. He has worked in the drug discovery arena for over two decades and is passionate about helping people live happier and healthier lives. His hobbies include rock climbing, mountain biking, kung fu, and teaching children how to be healthy and happy.

Dr. Richman worked as a laboratory technician for two years in the lab of Dr. Henry Yamamura, studying the pharmacology of pain modulation and molecular pathologies of Alzheimer’s disease. 

In January of 1998, Dr. Richman continued his research on the sympathetic nervous system in the laboratory of Dr. Lee Limbird at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN. Here he focused on the role of sub-cellular receptor distribution in micro-domain and synaptic formation. In January of 2001, Dr. Richman moved into drug discovery as a neuroscientist at Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc, San Diego, CA with the hope of identifying therapeutic mechanisms to prevent schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease. 

Following the murder of his daughter, Avielle, Dr. Richman and his wife, Jennifer Hensel, started the Avielle Foundation. It is his belief that through brain health research and education, we can protect our loved ones and foster happier and stronger communities.

Dara G. Ghahremani, Ph.D. is associate research faculty in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences and Semel Insitute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. He received his PhD in the Neuroscience area in the Psychology Department at Stanford University and was a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA. His research aims to understand self-control behavior, its neural basis, how it is compromised in substance abuse, and how it may be strengthened using both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions.

The self-control behaviors he focuses on include behavioral flexibility, response inhibition, and emotion regulation. He uses multiple neuroimaging techniques to investigate the neural basis of self-control, including functional MRI (fMRI) to measure brain activation while people perform various tests of self-control and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to measure neurochemical markers of dopamine function. His studies examine both healthy control participants and those that are substance abusers. These include adults who use methamphetamine and cigarettes as well as adolescent cigarette smokers and marijuana users. The interventions employed for potential enhancement of self-control behavior include medications that show promise for enhancing cognitive function and non-pharmacological approaches that activate the parasympathetic system, relieving stress and anxiety. His recent studies on non-pharmacological approaches have focused on the YES! for Schools program, an internationally-taught biopsychosocial workshop for adolescents that promotes self-regulation and human connection.