Yingshi Ouyang, Ph.D.
Research Faculty (Assistant Professor)
Yingshi Ouyang, Ph.D., is Research Faculty (Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and of Neurology Tenure Track) at the Developing Brain Institute and is a Principal Investigator (PI) at the Center for Prenatal, Neonatal & Maternal Health Research at Children’s National Hospital. As the contact PI of a National Institutes of Health R01 award through the Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative, Dr. Ouyang leads a transdisciplinary team investigating the impact of opioid use disorder on human placental development and function, as well as on fetal neurodevelopment. He actively engages in research driven by team science across innovative projects that bridge basic and translational biomedical science, including:
- How the human placenta forms and functions, especially in pregnancies affected by opioid use or other health problems, such as perinatal depression, and
- How nanoscale small extracellular vesicles released by the placenta help the mother and baby "talk" to each other throughout the nine-month pregnancy.
Key Studies
| October 2025 | Mouillet JF, Ouyang Y, Sadovsky E, Kothandan VK, Sorenson HL, Badeau LJ, Sarkar SN, Chu T, Sorkin A, Sadovsky Y. The Chromosome 19 miRNA Cluster Guards Trophoblasts Against Overacting Innate Immunity. Communications Biology. 2025 Oct 30;8(1):1511. doi: 10.1038/s42003-025-08923-x. PMID: 41168437; PMCID: PMC12575609 | view |
| June 2025 | Kothandan VK, Ouyang Y, Sadovsky E, Komsky-Elbaz A, Powell JS, Xia J, Huang TJ, Sadovsky Y. A Multi-Platform Assessment of Extracellular Vesicles From the Plasma and Urine of Women With Preeclampsia. Placenta. 2025 Jun 13;166:96-102. doi: 10.1016/j.placenta.2024.12.014. Epub 2024 Dec 28. PMID: 39746834; PMCID: PMC12146095 | view |
| November 2023 | Sadovsky E, Chu T, Barak O, Sadovsky Y, Ouyang Y. The Impact of Opioids on the Transcriptional Landscape of Human Villous Trophoblasts. Placenta. 2023 Nov;143:54-61. doi: 10.1016/j.placenta.2023.10.001. Epub 2023 Oct 6. PMID: 37832183; PMCID: PMC10841529 | view |
Date: April 2022
Seed M, Limperopoulos C. In Utero Brain Growth Matters for Fetuses With Congenital Heart Disease. Circulation. 2022 Apr 12;145(15):1120-1122. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.058683. Epub 2022 Apr 11. PMID: 35404677
View: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35404677
Date: January 2010
Limperopoulos C, Tworetzky W, McElhinney DB, Newburger JW, Brown DW, Robertson RL Jr, Guizard N, McGrath E, Geva J, Annese D, Dunbar-Masterson C, Trainor B, Laussen PC, du Plessis AJ. Brain Volume and Metabolism in Fetuses With Congenital Heart Disease: Evaluation With Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy. Circulation. 2010 Jan 5;121(1):26-33. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.109.865568. Epub 2009 Dec 21. PMID: 20026783; PMCID: PMC2819908
View: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2819908
Date: February 2024
Wu Y, De Asis-Cruz J, Limperopoulos C. Brain Structural and Functional Outcomes in the Offspring of Women Experiencing Psychological Distress During Pregnancy. Molecular Psychiatry. 2024 Jul;29(7):2223-2240. doi: 10.1038/s41380-024-02449-0. Epub 2024 Feb 28. PMID: 38418579; PMCID: PMC11408260
View: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38418579
Date: April 2022
Wu Y, Espinosa KM, Barnett SD, Kapse A, Quistorff JL, Lopez C, Andescavage N, Pradhan S, Lu YC, Kapse K, Henderson D, Vezina G, Wessel D, du Plessis AJ, Limperopoulos C. Association of Elevated Maternal Psychological Distress, Altered Fetal Brain, and Offspring Cognitive and Social-Emotional Outcomes at 18 Months. JAMA Network Open. 2022 Apr 1;5(4):e229244. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.9244. PMID: 35486403; PMCID: PMC9055453
View: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35486403