La, Jun-Ho (Faculty Profile)

View Profile

Faculty Profile

Last Modified Time: 10:33:09 AM Thu, 19 Nov 2020

Contact Information
Jun-Ho La	Associated Profiles
Assistant Professor, Neuroscience, Cell Biology, & Anatomy, UT Medical Branch at Galveston

Mail Box: 1069, Medical Research Building, Room No.: 2.143E
jula@utmb.edu (409) 772-6707 Web Link
Hypersensitivity, Spinal Ganglia, Neurons, Colitis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Colon, Inflammation, Pain, Rat Models, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Behavioral Testing, Neurobiology, Immunohistochemistry

Professional Preparation
Research and Expertise
Affiliations
Appointments

Professional Preparation

Degree	Major	Institution	Year
PhD	Veterinary Physiology	Seoul National University
MS	Veterinary Physiology	Seoul National University
DVM	Veterinary Medicine	Seoul National University

Research and Expertise

Research Interests

I have a long-standing research interest in chronic pain and developing therapeutic tools to manage this debilitating condition. My current research focuses on mechanisms of pain chronification, namely transition from acute to chronic pain, without underlying persistent tissue injury. This type of chronic pain is recently termed 'nociplastic pain', implying persistent plastic changes in the nociceptive neural circuit itself in this chronic pain state. There is growing appreciation that changes in synaptic strength (i.e., synaptic plasticity) are associated with chronic pain, and primary afferent input dynamically contributes to synaptic plasticity in spinal nociceptive circuit. Using behavioral, molecular biological, electrophysiological, and Ca2+-imaging approaches combined with optogenetic and chemogenetic tools, my lab investigates such long-term changes in peripheral and central nociceptive circuit components including non-neuronal cells (e.g., spinal glia).

I have also studied chronic visceral pain associated with inflammatory diseases as well as functional bowel disorders. Visceral organs are innervated by at least two different sensory pathways (e.g., vagal and splanchnic nerve pathways for upper visceral organs, and lumbar splanchnic and pelvic nerve pathways for lower pelvic organs), and my work has contributed to understanding of the characteristics of these different sensory pathways by, for example, examining their ion channel expression and electrophysiological properties. In addition, my research goal to identify potential therapeutic targets led me to development and characterization of animal models of visceral pain, and discoveries of important roles of two-pore domain K+ (K2P) channels in primary afferent neurons and condition-specific involvement of colonic inflammatory molecules in visceral hypersensitivity.

Publications/Creative Works

Click here to search for this faculty member's publications on PubMed.

Affiliations

Research Consortia

Gulf Coast Consortium for Translational Pain Research

Appointments

Title	Department / School	Institution
Assistant Professor	Neuroscience, Cell Biology, & Anatomy	UT Medical Branch at Galveston

powering - The Partnership
Important Disclaimer: The responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained on these pages lies with the authors and user providing such information.