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Dr James Pearson

BSc (Hons), PhD (Adelaide)

Senior Research Fellow (Monash Synchrotron Fellowship) - Department of Physiology

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 Address:  Department of Physiology
   Building 13F
   Monash University  VIC 3800  Australia
 Located:  Room F275, Building 13F (Physiology)
 at:  Clayton Campus
 Tel:  +61 3 990 59456
 Email:  james.pearson@med.monash.edu.au











Background

James moved to the Physiology Department in 2005 from the National Cardiovascular Center in Osaka, Japan, to develop a new research group in the area of synchrotron applications to physiological and medical sciences. With the expected completion of the Australian Synchrotron at Clayton in several years James’ research experiences at Japanese research facilities, including the world’s largest synchrotron at SPring-8 (Hyogo Prefecture of southern Japan) will provide the opportunity for fundamental cardiovascular research using living small animal models, and collaborations with other research scientists and postgraduate students locally and internationally in engineering, physics and physiology.

General Research Interests

  • The roles of neuromodulators in autonomic control of cardiovascular function.
  • Central and peripheral chemoreflexes and the coupling of respiration and heart rate. 
  • Vasomotor control in health and the disease state, and in particular the interactions between neural vasoconstrictor mechanisms and vasodilators in chronic diseases such as hypertension. 
  • Understanding the cellular basis of in vivo cardiac contractions and the regulation of left ventricle performance at the whole-heart level.

Dr Pearson utilizes synchrotron radiation in two different ways to perform functional imaging of live animals. First, the circulation to organ systems such as the brainstem and kidney and their control mechanisms is being investigated with high resolution contrast angiography in combination with pharmacological techniques that stimulate or prevent vasomotor control mechanisms. In doing so it is expected that this approach will provide a new perspective on the interactions between the brain-kidney-heart. In the first instance experiments are being conducted with members of the blood pressure research group to investigate the consequences of elevated angiotensin-II and superoxide generation. Second, in conjunction with colleagues in Japan a unique research program is implementing an X-ray diffraction technique to investigate the force generating process of cardiac muscle, by real time appraisal of cross-bridge dynamics in the left ventricle wall of the intact, beating heart. This technique when conducted simultaneous to conventional pressure-volume loop analyses provides an opportunity to examine important regulatory pathways including the Frank-Starling Law of the Heart, cardiac force-frequency relation and the all important b–adrenoreceptor pathway. It is expected that this information will better help to understand the cellular mechanisms involved in cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure.

Recent Publications

Pearson, J.T., Shirai, M., Ito, H., Tokunaga, N., Tsuchimochi, H., Nishiura, N., Schwenke, D.O., Ishibashi-Ueda, H., Akiyama, R., Mori, H., Kangawa, K., Suga, H. and Yagi, N. (2004). In situ measurements of crossbridge dynamics and lattice spacing in rat hearts by X-ray diffraction: Sensitivity to regional ischemia. Circulation 109:2976-2979.

Hanada, R., Teranishi, H., Pearson, J.T., Kurokawa, M., Hosoda, H., Fukushima, N., Fukue, Y., Serino, R., Fujihara, H., Ueta, Y., Hayashi, T., Okabe, M., Murakami, N., Shirai, M., Yoshimatsu, H., Kangawa, K. and Kojima, M. (2004). Neuromedin U has a novel anorexigenic effect independent of the leptin signaling pathway. Nature Medicine 10:1067-1073.

Seymour, R.S., S. Runciman, Baudinette, R.V. and Pearson, J.T. (2004). Developmental allometry of pulmonary structure and function in the altricial Australian Pelican, Pelecanus conspicillatus. J. Exp. Biol. 207:2663-2669.

Shirai, M., Pearson, J.T., Shimouchi, A., Nagaya, N., Tsuchimochi, H., Ninomiya, I. and Mori, H (2003).　Changes in functional and histological distributions of nitric oxide synthase caused by chronic hypoxia in rat small pulmonary arteries. Br. J. Pharmacol. 139:899-910.

Pearson, J. T., Seymour, R.S., Baudinette, R.V. and S. Runciman (2002). Respiration and energetics　of embryonic development in a large altricial bird, the Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus). J. Exp. Biol. 205: 2925-2933.

Pearson, J.T., Yagi, N., Shirai, M., Nishiura, N., Kanda, M., Tokunaga, N., Suga, H., Mori, H. (2002). Future investigations of micro-macro level cardiac functions using x-ray diffraction. BME 16 (1): 29-35.　

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