Email

minghual@bcm.edu

Positions

Assistant Professor

Neuroscience
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX US

Education

Postdoctoral Fellowship at Legacy Research Institute

01/2005 - Portland, Oregon United States

Using in vitro and in vivo models of ischemia and a combination of electrophysiology and molecular biological approaches, to study acidosis activated Acid-Sensing Ion Channels (ASICs) on brain ischemia.

PhD from Shanghai Institute of Meteria Medica, Chinese Academia of Science

07/2003 - Shanghai, China

Structure and functional characterization of three novel active toxins isolated from Scorpion Venom

MS from Zhengzhou University School of Medicine

07/1993 - Zhengzhou, Henan China

Determined the effects of Brucine on membrane intrinsic properties in acute isolated guinea-pig papillary muscle.

Professional Interests

• Ion channel physiology and pharmacology • Patch-clamp electrophysiology • Synaptic plasticity of neurodegenerative diseases • Ischemic brain injury • Alzheimer’s disease

Professional Statement

My formal training was in ion channel physiology and pharmacology. While training, my work mainly focused on studying the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the glutamate- dependent and independent excitotoxicity in brain ischemia. Using my expertise in ion channel biophysics, I showed that activation of ASICs by extracellular protons is paradoxically enhanced by intracellular alkalosis. Cell injury both in vivo and in vitro can be reduced by intracellular pH buffering. This discovery may lead to specific inhibitors that will leave basic ASIC function intact, but selectively target the potentiation of ASIC currents by rising intracellular pH following ischemia. My new position came with a promotion of Assistant Professor and a new research focus on understanding neuronal plasticity associated with pain and drugs of abuse. I pioneered whole-cell patch-clamp recordings in rostral ventromedial medullar (RVM) slices from adult animals. My studies have provided new information essential to understand the cellular mechanisms that underlay the changes in the RVM descending pain control balance during development. I became the first physiologist to perform whole-cell patch-clamp recordings from mature animals, which allowed us to examine brainstem plasticity in a chronic (adult) inflammatory pain model. I found that the cannabinoid CB2 receptor becomes hypersensitized in the rostral ventromedial during persistent inflammation, suggesting that selective CB2 agonists may be useful for treating persistent inflammatory pain. My career to this stage had pointed my electrophysiological skills at a number of diverse neurological disorders, but throughout I had been keen to tackle the physiological mechanisms accompanying neurodegeneration both before and as cell death erodes selected neuronal circuits. I got the chance to enter this field through my current position as an Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), where I am unraveling the circuit mechanisms of cellular vulnerability in the entorhinal cortex.

Selected Publications

• Li MH*, Suchlane KL, and Ingram SL. "Compensatory activation of cannabinoid CB2 receptor inhibition of GABA release in the rostral ventromedial medulla in inflammatory pain." 2017 37 : 626-636.
• Chen QL, Roeder Z, Li MH, Zhang Y, Ingram SL, and Heinricher MM. "Optogenetic evidence for a direct circuit linking nociceptive transmission through the parabrachial complex with pain-modulating neurons of the rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM)." eNeuro. 2017 4 : 1-16.
• McPherson KB, Leff ER, Li MH, Meurice C, Tai S, Traynor JR, Ingram SL. "Regulators of G-Protein Signaling (RGS) Proteins Promote Receptor Coupling to G-Protein-Coupled Inwardly Rectifying Potassium (GIRK) Channels." J Neurosci.. 2018 38 : 8737-8744.
• Li MH, Underhill SM, Reed C, Phillips TJ, Amara SG, and Ingram SL. "Amphetamine and methamphetamine increase NMDAR-GluN2B synaptic currents in midbrain dopamine neurons. Neuropsychopharmacology." Neuropsychopharmacology. 2017 42 : 1539-1547.