Rate My Professor Song Yao

Yao's research focuses on brain mechanisms regulating autonomic nervous system activity in health and disease, particularly neuroinflammation, blood-brain barrier dysfunction, and structural changes driving sympathetic overactivity in hypertension and heart failure. His laboratory examines cytokine-mediated neuroinflammation, brainstem neurogenesis in cardiovascular reflex control, orexin in hypoglycaemia-associated autonomic failure, and therapeutic optogenetic stimulation of the vagus nerve. Key publications include 'Purinergic modulation of cardiovascular function in the rat locus coeruleus' (2006), 'The splanchnic anti-inflammatory pathway: the current model of the inflammatory reflex needs to be revised' (2015, Autonomic Neuroscience), 'The role of the blood-brain barrier in hypertension' (2018, Experimental Physiology), 'Chemoattraction and recruitment of activated immune cells following optogenetic vagus nerve stimulation' (2019), and 'Fast and slow lanes of the vagus' (2024). Through international collaborations with University College London, University of Auckland, and Florey Institute researchers, leadership roles, and teaching in physiology and neuroscience at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, Yao significantly impacts autonomic neuroscience and cardiovascular disease research.