Scholars@Duke
Junli Zhao

Junli Zhao

Research Associate, Senior
Anesthesiology
junli.zhao@duke.edu
3 Genome Ct, MSRB3 6200, Durham, NC 27710

Selected Publications

NPD1/GPR37 signaling protects against painful traumatic brain injury and comorbidities by regulating demyelination, glial responses, and neuroinflammation in the mouse brain.

Journal Article Brain Behav Immun · December 10, 2025 Traumatic brain injury (TBI) often leads to neuropathic pain and a range of comorbidities, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cognitive decline and depression. Neuroprotectin D1 (NPD1), a lipid mediator derived from the omega-3 fatty acid doc ... Full text Link to item Cite

General Anesthesia-activated Neurons in the Central Amygdala Mediate Antinociception: Distinct Roles in Acute versus Chronic Phases of Nerve Injury.

Journal Article Anesthesiology · August 1, 2025 BACKGROUND: General anesthesia, such as isoflurane, induces analgesia (loss of pain) and loss of consciousness through mechanisms that are not fully understood. A distinct population of γ-aminobutyric acid-mediated neurons has been recently identified in t ... Full text Link to item Cite

PD-L1/PD-1 checkpoint pathway regulates hippocampal neuronal excitability and learning and memory behavior.

Journal Article Neuron · September 6, 2023 Featured Publication Programmed death protein 1 (PD-1) and its ligand PD-L1 constitute an immune checkpoint pathway. We report that neuronal PD-1 signaling regulates learning/memory in health and disease. Mice lacking PD-1 (encoded by Pdcd1) exhibit enhanced long-term potentia ... Full text Link to item Cite

Immunotherapies in chronic pain through modulation of neuroimmune interactions.

Journal Article Pharmacol Ther · August 2023 Featured Publication It is generally believed that immune activation can elicit pain through production of inflammatory mediators that can activate nociceptive sensory neurons. Emerging evidence suggests that immune activation may also contribute to the resolution of pain by p ... Full text Link to item Cite

Immunotherapy and Pain

Chapter · January 1, 2023 Featured Publication Immunotherapy was initially developed as a method to treat cancer through the use of the host’s immune system. Now, immunotherapy is used as a treatment for a wide variety of diseases. The connection between the nervous system and the immune system in chro ... Full text Cite

Activated astrocytes attenuate neocortical seizures in rodent models through driving Na+-K+-ATPase.

Journal Article Nature communications · November 2022 Featured Publication Epileptic seizures are widely regarded to occur as a result of the excitation-inhibition imbalance from a neuro-centric view. Although astrocyte-neuron interactions are increasingly recognized in seizure, elementary questions about the causal role of astro ... Full text Cite

Emerging Role of PD-1 in the Central Nervous System and Brain Diseases.

Journal Article Neurosci Bull · August 2021 Featured Publication Programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) is an immune checkpoint modulator and a major target of immunotherapy as anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibodies have demonstrated remarkable efficacy in cancer treatment. Accumulating evidence suggests an important role of P ... Full text Link to item Cite

Central opioid receptors mediate morphine-induced itch and chronic itch via disinhibition.

Journal Article Brain · March 3, 2021 Opioids such as morphine are mainstay treatments for clinical pain conditions. Itch is a common side effect of opioids, particularly as a result of epidural or intrathecal administration. Recent progress has advanced our understanding of itch circuits in t ... Full text Link to item Cite

STING controls nociception via type I interferon signalling in sensory neurons.

Journal Article Nature · March 2021 The innate immune regulator STING is a critical sensor of self- and pathogen-derived DNA. DNA sensing by STING leads to the induction of type-I interferons (IFN-I) and other cytokines, which promote immune-cell-mediated eradication of pathogens and neoplas ... Full text Link to item Cite

Lysophospholipids Contribute to Oxaliplatin-Induced Acute Peripheral Pain.

Journal Article J Neurosci · December 2, 2020 Oxaliplatin, a platinum-based chemotherapeutic drug, which is used as first-line treatment for some types of colorectal carcinoma, causes peripheral neuropathic pain in patients. In addition, an acute peripheral pain syndrome develop in almost 90% of patie ... Full text Link to item Cite

PD-1 Regulates GABAergic Neurotransmission and GABA-Mediated Analgesia and Anesthesia.

Journal Article iScience · October 23, 2020 The immune checkpoint inhibitor programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) plays a critical role in immune regulation. Recent studies have demonstrated functional PD-1 expression in peripheral sensory neurons, which contributes to neuronal excitability, pain, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Direct Septum-Hippocampus Cholinergic Circuit Attenuates Seizure Through Driving Somatostatin Inhibition.

Journal Article Biological psychiatry · May 2020 BackgroundPrevious studies indicated the involvement of cholinergic neurons in seizure; however, the specific role of the medial septum (MS)-hippocampus cholinergic circuit in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) has not yet been completely elucidated. Full text Cite

HMGB1 Is a Therapeutic Target and Biomarker in Diazepam-Refractory Status Epilepticus with Wide Time Window.

Journal Article Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · April 2020 Featured Publication Status epilepticus (SE), a life-threatening neurologic emergency, is often poorly controlled by the current pharmacological therapeutics, which are limited to a narrow time window. Here, we investigated the proinflammatory cytokine high mobility group box- ... Full text Cite

A disinhibitory nigra-parafascicular pathway amplifies seizure in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Journal Article Nature communications · February 2020 The precise circuit of the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) involved in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is still unclear. Here we found that optogenetic or chemogenetic activation of SNr parvalbumin+ (PV) GABAergic neurons amplifies seizure a ... Full text Cite

Pharmaco-genetic therapeutics targeting parvalbumin neurons attenuate temporal lobe epilepsy.

Journal Article Neurobiology of disease · September 2018 Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common type of epilepsy and is often medically refractory. Previous studies suggest that selective pharmaco-genetic inhibition of pyramidal neurons has therapeutic value for the treatment of epilepsy, however there ... Full text Cite

Therapeutic potential of an anti-high mobility group box-1 monoclonal antibody in epilepsy.

Journal Article Brain, behavior, and immunity · August 2017 Featured Publication Brain inflammation is a major factor in epilepsy, and the high mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) protein is known to contribute significantly to the generation of seizures. Here, we investigated the therapeutic potential of an anti-HMGB1 monoclonal antibody (mA ... Full text Cite

Aberrant Buildup of All-Trans-Retinal Dimer, a Nonpyridinium Bisretinoid Lipofuscin Fluorophore, Contributes to the Degeneration of the Retinal Pigment Epithelium.

Journal Article Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · February 2017 Featured Publication PurposeNondegradable fluorophores that accumulate as deleterious lipofuscin of RPE are involved in pathological mechanisms leading to the degeneration of RPE in AMD. A2E, a major component of RPE lipofuscin, could cause damage to RPE cells. Nevert ... Full text Cite

Preparative and biosynthetic insights into pdA2E and isopdA2E, retinal-derived fluorophores of retinal pigment epithelial lipofuscin.

Journal Article Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · November 2014 Featured Publication PurposeRetinal-derived fluorophores that accumulate as RPE lipofuscin are implicated in pathological mechanisms of AMD. One component of RPE lipofuscin has been characterized as pdA2E, a pyridinium adduct derived from all-trans-retinal and excess ... Full text Cite

Retinal metabolism in humans induces the formation of an unprecedented lipofuscin fluorophore 'pdA2E'.

Journal Article The Biochemical journal · June 2014 Toxic lipofuscin in the RPE (retinal pigment epithelium) is implicated in blindness in AMD (age-related macular degeneration) or recessive Stargardt's disease patients. In the present study, we identified a novel fluorescent lipofuscin component in human a ... Full text Cite