Biography

Jude Savarraj earned his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University in 2013, with a dissertation focused on neural engineering, specifically investigating the electrical signatures associated with glioma spread and network oscillations. Following his doctoral work, he completed postdoctoral training at UTHealth Houston from 2015 to 2018, where he specialized in clinical informatics. His expertise spans machine learning, big data analysis, and their applications in neuroscience and neurology. His current research focuses on epilepsy, where he is involved in a study using Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for epilepsy treatment. He is currently involved in a  clinical trial with Dr. Nitin Tandon on neuromodulation for seizure-control.

He has published around 40 research articles in various scientific journals.

Education

Doctorate, Biomedical Engineering
Louisiana Tech University
Postdoctoral Training, Clinical Informatics
UTHealth Houston

Areas of Interest

Research Interests

Dr. Jude’s research focuses on developing neuromodulation therapies and understanding network dynamics and neuronal responses to chronic brain stimulation. Neuromodulation therapies hold potential to improve patient outcomes and quality of life by targeting specific neuronal circuits for treatment of neurological disorders. The recent advances in neuromodulation techniques, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) and cortical stimulation, highlight the importance of optimizing stimulation parameters and strategies for the treatment of epilepsy. Dr. Savarraj and others have found that brain stimulation can lead to complex changes in neuronal excitability, connectivity, and plasticity, which can be leveraged to reduce hypersynchrony and prevent seizures. Understanding these network-level changes is crucial for refining stimulation protocols and enhancing therapeutic efficacy in seizure control.

Additionally, his current research focuses on evaluating how chronic low-frequency stimulation (LFS) impacts neuronal network synchronization and how targeted stimulation can modulate brain rhythms to reduce pathological activity in conditions such as epilepsy. This project investigates how specific stimulation patterns influence network excitability and seeks to develop novel approaches to desynchronize overactive brain regions, thereby preventing seizure occurrence.

Dr. Jude’s long-term research goal is to make a significant impact on neurological disease treatment through the translation of his findings into clinical applications. For this, he aims to bridge the gap between basic scientific discoveries and clinical neuromodulation therapies, promoting a collaborative approach to research and patient care.

Publications

  1. Aaron M. Gusdon, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Diana Feng, Adam Starkman, Guoyan Li, Uttam Bodanapally, William Zimmerman, Alice S. Ryan, Huimahn A. Choi, and Neeraj Badjatia, Identification of metabolites associated with preserved muscle volume after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage due to high protein supplementation and neuromuscular electrical stimulation, Scientific Reports, 2024, 14(1), 15071.
  2. Aaron M. Gusdon, Jude P. J. Savarraj, John B. Redell, Atzhiry Paz, Sarah Hinds, Angela Burkett, Glenda Torres, Xuefang Ren, Neeraj Badjatia, Georgene W. Hergenroeder, Anthony N. Moore, H. Alex Choi, and Pramod K. Dash, Lysophospholipids are associated with outcomes in hospitalized patients with mild traumatic brain injury, Journal of Neurotrauma, 2024, 41(1-2), 59-72.
  3. Ahmed Elhussein, Jude P.J. Savarraj, E. Sander Connolly, Murad Megjhani, Soon Bin Kwon, Angela Velazquez, Daniel Nametz, David J. Roh, Jan Claassen, Miriam Weiss, Sachin Agarwal, Huimahn A. Choi, Gerrit A. Schubert, Soojin Park, and Gamze Gürsoy, A generalizable physiological model for detection of Delayed Cerebral Ischemia using Federated Learning, 2023 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM),
  4. Aaron M. Gusdon, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Diana Feng, Adam Starkman, Guoyan Li, Uttam Bodanapally, William Denny Zimmerman, Alice S. Ryan, Huimahn A. Choi, and Neeraj Badjatia, High-Protein Supplementation and Neuromuscular Electric Stimulation after Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Increases Systemic Amino Acid and Oxidative Metabolism: A Plasma Metabolomics Approach, Research Square, 2023.
  5. Aaron M. Gusdon, Jude P. J. Savarraj, John B. Redell, Atzhiry S. Paz, Sarah N. Hinds, Angela B. Burkett, Glenda L. Torres, Xuefang Ren, Neeraj Badjatia, Georgene W. Hergenroeder, Anthony N. Moore, H. Alex Choi, and Pramod K. Dash, Lysophospholipids are Associated with Outcomes after Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Humans, Journal of Neurotrauma, 2023
  6. Hugo Gonzalez Gomez, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Atzhiry S. Paz, Xuefang Ren, Hua Chen, Louise D. McCullough, Huimahn A. Choi, and Aaron M. Gusdon, Peripheral eosinophil trends and clinical outcomes after non-traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage, Frontiers in Neurology, 2023, 14, 1051732.
  7. Jude P. J. Savarraj, Devin W. McBride, Eunsu Park, Sarah Hinds, Atzhiry Paz, Aaron Gusdon, Ren Xuefang, Sheng Pan, Hilda Ahnstedt, Gabriela Delevati Colpo, Eunhee Kim, Zhongming Zhao, Louise McCullough, and Huimahn Alex Choi, Leucine-Rich Alpha-2-Glycoprotein 1 is a Systemic Biomarker of Early Brain Injury and Delayed Cerebral Ischemia After Subarachnoid Hemorrhage, Neurocritical Care, 2022, 1-10.
  8. Aaron M. Gusdon, Chenlian Fu, Vasanta Putluri, Atzhiry S. Paz, Hua Chen, Xuefang Ren, Mohammed Khurshidul Hassan, Pramod Dash, Cristian Coarfa, Nagireddy Putluri, Huimahn A. Choi, and Jude P. J. Savarraj, Early systemic glycolytic shift after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage is associated with functional outcomes, Neurocritical Care, 2022, 37(3), 724-734.
  9. Sung-Ho Ahn, Jeong-Ho Hong, Glenda L. Torres, Jude P.J. Savarraj, Chang Hyeun Kim, Young Ha Kim, Arthur L. Day, H. Alex Choi, James C. Grotta, and Tiffany R. Chang, The spot sign and intraventricular hemorrhage are associated with baseline coagulopathy and outcome in intracerebral hemorrhage, Neurocritical Care, 2022, 37(3), 660-669.
  10. Linda Ma, Silin Wu, Aaron M. Gusdon, Hua Chen, Heng Hu, Atzhiry S. Paz, Jaroslaw Aronowski, Jude P.J. Savarraj, Ryan S. Kitagawa, Huimahn A. Choi, and Xuefang S. Ren, Cathepsin L and acute ischemic stroke: A mini-review, Frontiers in Stroke, 2022, 1, 1050536.
  11. Xuefang Sophie Ren, Huimahn A. Choi, Aaron M. Gusdon, Heng Hu, Jude P.J Savarraj, Atzhiry Paz, Ryan S. Kitagawa, and James W. Simpkins, Blood substitution—More challenges for translational significance, Frontiers in Stroke, 2022, 1, 1050434.
  12. Sung-Ho Ahn, Angela Burkett, Atzhiry Paz, Jude P.J. Savarraj, Sarah Hinds, Georgene Hergenroeder, Aaron M. Gusdon, Xuefang Ren, Jeong-Ho Hong, and Huimahn A. Choi, Systemic inflammatory markers of persistent cerebral edema after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, Journal of Neuroinflammation, 2022, 19(1), 199.
  13. Hussein A. Zeineddine, Wen Li, Devin McBride, Ari Dienel, Glenda Torres, James Grotta, Jude P.J. Savarraj, Tiffany Chang, Huimahn A. Choi, Pramod Dash, and Spiros Blackburn, Thromboelastography indices for predicting outcomes after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: a prospective study, Stroke, 2022, 53(6), e221-e223.
  14. Park Eunsu, Sehee Kim, Derek Yao, Jude P.J. Savarraj, HuiMahn Choi, Peng Chen, and Eunhee Kim, Soluble endoglin stimulates inflammatory and angiogenic responses in microglia that are associated with endothelial dysfunction, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2022.
  15. Jude P. J. Savarraj, Devin W. McBride, Eunsu Park, Sarah Hinds, Atzhiry Paz, Aaron Gusdon, Ren Xuefang, Sheng Pan, Hilda Ahnstedt, Gabriela Delevati Colpo, Eunhee Kim, Zhongming Zhao, Louise McCullough, and Huimahn Alex Choi, Leucine-Rich Alpha-2-Glycoprotein 1 is a Systemic Biomarker of Early Brain Injury and Delayed Cerebral Ischemia After Subarachnoid Hemorrhage, Neurocritical Care, 2022, 1-10.
  16. Jude P. J. Savarraj, Ryan Kitagawa, Dong H. Kim, and Huimahn A. Choi, White matter connectivity for early prediction of Alzheimer’s disease, Technology and Health Care, 2022, 30(1), 17-28.
  17. Jude P.J. Savarraj, Eun S. Park, Gabriela D. Colpo, Sarah N. Hinds, Diego Morales, Hilda Ahnstedt, Atzhiry S. Paz, Andres Assing, Fudong Liu, Shivanki Juneja, Eunhee Kim, Sung-min Cho, Aaron M. Gusdon, Pramod Dash, Louise D. McCullough, and H. Alex Choi, Brain injury, endothelial injury and inflammatory markers are elevated and express sex-specific alterations after COVID-19, Journal of Neuroinflammation, 2021, 18, 1-12.
  18. Ari Dienel, Remya A. Veettil, Kanako Matsumura, Jude P. J. Savarraj, H. Alex Choi, Peeyush Kumar, Jaroslaw Aronowski, Pramod Dash, Spiros L. Blackburn, and Devin W. McBride, α7-acetylcholine receptor signaling reduces neuroinflammation after subarachnoid hemorrhage in mice, Neurotherapeutics, 2021, 18(3), 1891-1904.
  19. Min-Kyoo Shin, Edwin Vázquez-Rosa, Yeojung Koh, Matasha Dhar, Kalyani Chaubey, Coral J. Cintrón-Pérez, Sarah Barker, Emiko Miller, Kathryn Franke, Maria F. Noterman, Divya Seth, Rachael S. Allen, Cara T. Motz, Sriganesh Ramachandra Rao, Lara A. Skelton, Machelle T. Pardue, Steven J. Fliesler, Chao Wang, Tara E. Tracy, Li Gan, Daniel J. Liebl, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Glenda L. Torres, Hilda Ahnstedt, Louise D. McCullough, Ryan S. Kitagawa, H. Alex Choi, Pengyue Zhang, Yuan Hou, Chien-Wei Chiang, Lang Li, Francisco Ortiz, Jessica A. Kilgore, Noelle S. Williams, Victoria C. Whitehair, Tamar Gefen, Margaret E. Flanagan, Jonathan S. Stamler, Mukesh K. Jain, Allison Kraus, Feixiong Cheng, James D. Reynolds, and Andrew A. Pieper, Reducing acetylated tau is neuroprotective in brain injury, Cell, 2021.
  20. Murad Megjhani, Kalijah Terilli, Miriam Weiss, Jude P.J Savarraj, Li Hui Chen, Ayham Alkhachroum, David J. Roh, Sachin Agarwal, E. Sander Connolly Jr., Angela Velazquez, Amelia Boehme, Jan Claassen, HuiMahn A. Choi, Gerrit A. Schubert, and Soojin Park, Dynamic detection of delayed cerebral ischemia: a study in 3 centers, Stroke, 2021, 52(4), 1370-1379.
  21. Jude P.J Savarraj, Angela Burkett, Sarah Hinds, Atzhiry Paz, Andres Assing, Shivanki Juneja, Gabriela Delevati Colpo, Luis F. Torres, Sung-Min Cho, Aaron Gusdon, Louise D. McCullough, and H. Alex Choi, Pain and other neurological symptoms are present at three-month after hospitalization in COVID-19 patients, Frontiers in Pain Research, 2021.
  22. Aaron M. Gusdon, Jude P.J. Savarraj, Elias Shihabeddin, Atzhiry Paz, Andres Assing, Seung Bong Ko, Louise D. McCullough, and Huimahn A. Choi, Time Course of Peripheral Leukocytosis and Clinical Outcomes after Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage, Frontiers in Neurology, 2021.
  23. Jude P.J. Savarraj, Georgene Hergenroeder, Liang Zhu, Tiffany Chang, Soojin Park, Murad Megjhani, Farhaan Vahidy, Zhongming Zhao, Ryan Kitagawa, and Huimahn A. Choi, Machine learning to predict delayed cerebral ischemia and outcomes in subarachnoid hemorrhage, Neurology, 2021.
  24. Anthony Patrizz, Antonio Dono, Soheil Zorofchian, Gabriella Hines, Takeshi Takayasu, Nuruddin Husein, Yoshihiro Otani, Octavio Arevalo, H. Alex Choi, Jude P.J. Savarraj, Nitin Tandon, Bhanu P. Ganesh, Balveen Kaur, Louise D. McCullough, Leomar Y. Ballester, and Yoshua Esquenazi, Glioma and temozolomide induced alterations in gut microbiome, Scientific Reports, 2020, 10(1), 21002.
  25. Aaron M. Gusdon, Jude P.J. Savarraj, Liang Zhu, Peeyush K. Thankamani Pandit, Sylvain Doré, Devin W. McBride, HuiMahn A. Choi, and Spiros L. Blackburn, Haptoglobin genotype affects inflammation after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, Current Neurovascular Research, 2020, 17(5), 652-659.
  26. Seymanur Capoglu, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Sunil Sheth, H. A. Choi, and Luca Giancardo, Representation Learning of 3D Brain Angiograms, an Application for Cerebral Vasospasm Prediction, 41st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC),
  27. Cole T. Lewis, Jude P. J. Savarraj, McGuire Mary, Alex H. Choi, and Ryan Kitagawa, Elevated Inflammation and Decreased Platelet Activity is Associated with Poor Outcomes after Traumatic Brain Injury, Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, 2019.
  28. Sungho Ahn, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Kaushik Parsha, Georgene Hergenroeder, Tiffany R. Chang, Dong H. Kim, Ryan Kitagawa, Spiros Blackburn, and H. Alex Choi, Inflammation in Delayed Ischemia and Functional Outcomes after Subarachnoid Hemorrhage, Journal of Neuroinflammation, 2019.
  29. Jude P. J. Savarraj, Kinsey Cotton Kelley, and Mark DeCoster, Early glioma is associated with abnormal electrical events in cortical cultures, Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing, 2019.
  30. Bradley Rowland, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Jay Karri, Xu Zhang, Jessica Cardenas, H. Alex Choi, John B. Holcomb, and Charles E. Wade, Acute Inflammation in Traumatic Brain Injury and Polytrauma Patients Using Network Analysis, Shock,
  31. F. McGuire, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Ryan Kitagawa, and H. A. Choi, Acute Inflammation after Traumatic Brain Injury, Translational Inflammation, 2019.
  32. Jude P. J. Savarraj, Kaushik Parsha, Georgene Hergenroeder, Sungho Ahn, Tiffany R. Chang, Dong H. Kim, and H. Alex Choi, Early brain injury associated with systemic inflammation after subarachnoid hemorrhage, Neurocritical Care, 2018, 28(2), 203-211, Springer US.
  33. Jude P. J. Savarraj, Mary F. McGuire, Kaushik Parsha, Georgene Hergenroeder, Suhas Bajgur, Sungho Ahn, Liang Zhu, Elena Espino, Tiffany Chang, Spiros Blackburn, Dong H. Kim, Pramod Dash, and Huimahn A. Choi, Disruption of thrombo-inflammatory response and activation of a distinct cytokine cluster after subarachnoid hemorrhage, Cytokine, 2018, 111, 334-341.
  34. Cole T. Lewis, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Mary F. McGuire, H. Alex Choi, Ryan Seiji Kitagawa, Elevated inflammation and decreased platelet activity is associated with poor outcomes after traumatic brain injury, Neurosurgery, 2017, 64, 250-250.
  35. Sophie Samuel, Leigh Gomez, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Suhas Bajgur, Huimahn A. Choi, Assessment of the relationship between body mass index and incidence of venous thromboembolism in hospitalized overweight and obese patients, Pharmacotherapy: The Journal of Human Pharmacology and Drug Therapy, 2017, 37(8), 893-899.
  36. Sung-Ho Ahn, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Mubashir Pervez, Wesley Jones, Jin Park, Sang-Beom Jeon, Sun U. Kwon, Tiffany R. Chang, Kiwon Lee, Dong H. Kim, Arthur L. Day, H. Alex Choi, The subarachnoid hemorrhage early brain edema score predicts delayed cerebral ischemia and clinical outcomes, Neurosurgery, 2017, 83(1), 137-145.
  37. Jude P. J. Savarraj, Kaushik Parsha, Georgene W. Hergenroeder, Liang Zhu, Suhas S. Bajgur, Sungho Ahn, Kiwon Lee, Tiffany Chang, Dong H. Kim, Yin Liu, H. Alex Choi, Systematic model of peripheral inflammation after subarachnoid hemorrhage, Neurology, 2017, 88(16), 1535-1545
  38. Sophie Samuel, Suhas Bajgur, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Huimahn A. Choi, Impact of practice change in reducing venous thromboembolism in neurocritical overweight patients: 2008–2014, Journal of Thrombosis and Thrombolysis, 2017, 43, 98–104.
  39. Alex Choi, Suhas S. Bajgur, Wesley H. Jones, Jude P. J. Savarraj, Sang-Bae Ko, Nancy J. Edwards, Tiffany R. Chang, Georgene W. Hergenroeder, Mark J. Dannenbaum, P. Roc Chen, Arthur L. Day, Dong H. Kim, Kiwon Lee, James C. Grotta, Quantification of cerebral edema after subarachnoid hemorrhage, Neurocritical Care, 2016, 25, 64–70.
  40. Jude P. J. Savarraj, Alan W. L. Chiu, Network dynamics and spontaneous oscillations in a developing neuronal culture, American Journal of Biomedical Engineering, 2014, 4(1), 17-24.