About Dr. V
Neuroimmune Specialist & Psychoneuroimmune Researcher
My Academic and Personal Experience
Neuroimmune Specialist & Psycho‑Neuro‑Immune Researcher
I’m a neuroimmune specialist and psycho‑neuro‑immune researcher trained at the University of Pennsylvania. My work focuses on defining and treating the Type B Neuroimmune state—an interlocked brain–immune–autonomic configuration that emerges under cumulative biotoxin, infectious, and relational‑trauma load.
Type B Neuroimmune is not simply theoretical for me. I have lived with varying illnesses that all fall under the umbrella of Type B Neuroimmune since childhood. I know firsthand what it is like to go undiagnosed and untreated, struggling to find your way out of the storm.
Today, my consulting practice, The North Star, as well as my teaching within The Lighthouse and The Safe Harbor, function as a living laboratory and classroom for The Jupiter Approach: Type B Neuroimmune Medicine—a model I’m continually refining for patients whose systems don’t fit standard‑mold Lyme, MCAS, or Long‑COVID protocols.
University & Research
Formally, my path has included:
B.A. in Psychology with honors from the University of Pennsylvania, with basic‑science research work in psychology and neuroscience.
Clinical research roles at UPenn, UCSD, and Duke, including:
Work in Psychiatry and Neurology radiolabeling norepinephrine reuptake receptors and assisting in cadaver brain dissection and labeling
Phase I–IV drug trials in Psychiatry, Gastroenterology, and Pulmonology
Lead authorship of a multicenter retrospective review of Cerebrospinal Fluid values in Kawasaki Disease, a pediatric infectious disease
An observational NIH‑funded study on breathing patterns during sleep in patients with panic disorder
Collaborative work with clinicians across primary care, integrative medicine, psychology, nutrition and other specialties within the larger university medical systems
A six-year East Asian medicine clinical doctorate that trained me in doctoral‑level pattern recognition. I use this skill as an internal lens for mapping patterns across systems, environments, and treatment considerations. I also draw on the highly intricate diagnostics and treatment methodologies of chronic infections known as Gu or Nüe Syndrome.
Shoemaker certification in biotoxin illness, also known as Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS). This training grounded me in specific diagnostics that are often ignored in mainstream medicine.
Intensive study of the neurophysiology of complex trauma including the work of Peter Levine, PhD, Stephen Porges, PhD, and Gabor Maté, MD.
Research, Not Just Practice
I keep protected time for research and for developing The Jupiter Approach: Type B Neuroimmune Medicine. I analyze patterns across cases, continually reflecting on and refining my understanding and approach in ways that support both my clients and collaborative research.
Current interests include:
Autonomic signatures of the Type B Neuroimmune phenotype
Immune patterns in the Type B Neuroimmune phenotype
Imaging correlates (e.g., MRI/NeuroQuant) of symptoms
The impact of persistent psychosocial toxicants (chronic exposure to narcissistic or otherwise toxic relational dynamics) on neuroimmune trajectories, especially when combined with biotoxin and infectious load
My long‑term aim is to define the Type B neuroimmune phenotype so that it can be studied, measured, and treated more effectively—and allow for a broader understanding of illness.
My Own Type B Neuroimmune System (N=1)
This work is not abstract for me. I live in the physiology I study.
I was a relatively healthy child with a vivid imagination and a deep love of the outdoors until about age six. Then, in a short period of time, a lot changed at once: we moved and I lost connection to my babysitters, neighbors, and familiar activities; I received routine childhood vaccinations; started a new school; and went from a neighborhood close to the ocean into a dense, wooded area with mold and ticks. At the same time, I became more isolated at home with a mother whose narcissistic traits made the environment emotionally unsafe.
Very quickly, my body began to speak: allergies, rashes, IBS, headaches, fatigue, and depression emerged. In my teens I developed asthma with severe bronchitis each fall. The influx of hormones from puberty improved my energy and I was able to play three varsity sports and take honors math and science courses.
Unfortunately as a town beach lifeguard I received the (then new) Hepatitis B vaccine, and within a short period I was hospitalized for three weeks and out of university for two years with severe fatigue, brain fog, depression / anxiety, and dysmenorrhea. I returned to school and graduated from Penn with honors and worked in research, and I participated in Masters Swimming—but I did it the way many Type B people do: by overriding my body. I pushed through considerable anxiety and ignored fatigue with coffee and willpower.
After University I moved to California, where I experienced how powerful the right inputs could be: East Asian herbal medicine resolved my asthma and allergies, and I spent many enjoyable hours running, swimming, cycling, and sailing in the beautiful coastal environment. I delighted in seeing dolphins, whales and seals and was fortunate to work on the varied research projects at UCSD—but the deeper pattern didn’t disappear. Growing up with two narcissistic parents (and importantly not recognizing or understanding it yet) meant I continued to carry a constant, background sense of angst.
In graduate school, I underwent five years of Hakomi therapy for trauma. It helped my daily interactions and gave me language and tools, but my underlying nervous system pattern did not heal. Sleep, anxiety, and irritability worsened despite a deep daily meditation practice I maintained for years. I eventually tried an SSRI, which temporarily helped some aspects of hypervigilence but further disrupted my sleep, requiring another medication to be able to rest. Headaches continued to worsen and at times were relentless.
After graduating and while working at Duke and then in private practice, I spent years unknowingly living in mold‑exposed environments. Fatigue and nervous‑system dysregulation became more pronounced and I navigated life from a chronic fight/flight or freeze—even as I did “all the right things” by functional medicine and other healing standards.
A later move to Florida brought the warm Atlantic, which was genuinely healing for my system—but the mold exposure, chronic infections, and narcissistic patterns that fed into further immune and nervous system dysregulation continued in the background. Headaches, fatigue, and nocturnal palpitations all worsened despite careful diet, supplements, nervous‑system practices, and voracious study of Polyvagal theory and somatoemotional work. My body was not responding the way the models said it “should.”
In 2022 I finally encountered CIRS—a protocol for biotoxin exposure, and shortly thereafter the classical East Asian concept of Gu syndrome—a framework for understanding multi-parasitic chronic infections. Those discoveries opened the door for me to start formally mapping what my body had been showing me for decades: the cumulative effects of biotoxin exposure, chronic infections, and persistant psychosocial toxicants drove recognizable immune, autonomic nervous system, and structural physiologic change. This integrated brain–immune–autonomic system is what I now call Type B Neuroimmune.
That N=1 history informs my analysis of and protocols for Type Bs. I have lived the reality that you can be smart, motivated, and try to do everything “right” and still get sicker if you don’t see Type B Neuroimmune, an interlocked brain–immune–autonomic configuration that emerges under cumulative biotoxin, infectious and psychosocial toxicants.
“I really value and respect—and I mean that from the heart—your knowledge and your opinion. You speak in ways that it’s very easy for me to understand what goes on in my body.”
—North Star client, José A., Navy SEAL