Lingsha Ju
University of Florida, United States
- Orcid: 0000-0001-7266-0794
- Publications: 20
- Citations: 304
- Keywords: Anesthesiology; Neuroscience; Cognition; Perioperative neurocognitive disorders; Epigenetics; PTSD; Depression; Ketamine
Short Bio
- Dr. Lingsha Ju is a graduate assistant of Anesthesiology in the divisions of Research and Neuroanesthesia. Dr. Ju earned a Doctor of Medicine degree in Anesthesiology from Xuzhou Medical University as well as her Master of Science degree in Anesthesiology from Nanjing University. Following this, she completed a medical residency training at First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University. Dr. Ju is an anesthesiologist and neuroscientist investigating mechanisms of long-term neurobehavioral abnormalities in rodents exposed to general anesthetics (GAs) early in life. Her experience encompasses extensive practical use of molecular, single-cell, tissue, and whole animal methods. Dr. Ju plays a central role in the studies demonstrating that GABAergic GAs administered early in life can function as environmental stressors that predispose study subjects to exacerbated stress reactivity and neurobehavioral abnormalities in adulthood. She also demonstrated that the NKCC1 Cl- importer inhibitor bumetanide, administered prior to exposure to such anesthetics, had therapeutic effects. Importantly, bumetanide exhibits promising therapeutic effects against autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and other neurodevelopmental disorders in humans and animal models. Current developments in epidemiological studies and research in animal models demonstrate that various environmental stressors and endocrine disruptors can affect offspring through epigenetic reprogramming of the parental germ cell epigenome. Those findings prompted Dr. Ju to broaden the scope of the investigation of the adverse effects of GAs by assessing such effects in the exposed parents and in their future unexposed offspring. Her long-term research plans involve identifying pathophysiological outcomes, mediating mechanisms, blood-based biomarkers and, potentially, safer GA alternatives for the intergenerational perioperative neurocognitive disorder (PND) in parents with pathophysiological conditions.
