Janine graduated from the Coventry University in 1996, with a BSc (Hons) in Biochemical Sciences, having also completed a sandwich year in the Cardiovascular Research Group at Coventry University.

Following this she continued with her research interest in cardiovascular physiology and joined Professor John Coote’s research group at the University of Birmingham’s Medical School, where she gained her PhD entitled ‘A search for a central action of physiological and pharmacological stimuli influencing cardiac vagal tine in humans’. Janine continued with Professor Coote’s group as a postdoctoral research fellow (supported by the British Heart Foundation) until 2003.

In 2003 Janine was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in Applied Physiology at Birmingham City University, and shortly after joined the University of Wolverhampton as a Senior Lecturer in Human and Clinical Physiology.

Janine is currently the admissions tutor for the Human Biology award. She is also a personal tutor, module leader, Chair of the Project Validation Committee (Physiology) and a committee member on the Life Sciences Ethics committee at the University of Wolverhampton.

Physiological and pharmacological stimuli affecting cardiac vagal tone in man in both health and disease;

• Parasympathetic modulation of the anti-inflammatory effects of exercise training.
• Patterns of cardiac vagal reactivation after exercise.
• The relationship between endogenous female sex hormones and resting cardiac autonomic function.

• The influence of anti-oxidants on cardiac vagal tone.
• Sympathovagal effects of caffeine ingestion.

The effects of gastric distension, temperature, tonicity on cardiac autonomic efferent activity.

Member of the Physiological Society.

Publications (since 2004):

Fletcher J., Buch A.N., Routledge H.C., Chowdhary S.,Coote J.H., Townend J.N. (2004) Acute aldosterone antagonism improves cardiac vagal control in humans. Journal of the AmericanCollege of Cardiology. 43 (7): 1270-1275.

Steeds R., Fletcher J., Smith M., West J., Channer K., Townend J. (2004) Prognostic Significance of Early Short-Term Measurements of Heart Rate Variability Following Acute Myocardial Infarction. Amercian Journal of Cardiology. 94: 1275-1278.

Hepburn H., Fletcher J., Rosengarten T.H., Coote J.H.  (2005) Cardiac vagal tone, exercise performance and the effect of respiratory training. European Journal of Applied Physiology. 94:681-689.

Gladwell V. F, Fletcher J., Patel N., Elvidge L. Lloyd D., Chowdhary S. and Coote J.H. (2005) The influence of small fibre muscle mechanoreceptors on the cardiac vagus in humans. Journal of Physiology.567: 713-721.

Fletcher, J., Moody W.E., Chowdhary S., Coote J.H. (2006) NO-cGMP pathway at ventrolateral medullary cardiac inhibitory sites enhances the baroreceptor reflex bradycardia in the rat. Brain Research. 1123: 125- 134.

L.C. Kazadi, J. Fletcher and P. Barrow (2013). The effects of gastric afferent autonomic activity on cardiac efferent autonomic balance in healthy human volunteers. International Union of Physiological Societies abstracts PCB018.

T. Masters, P. Barrow and J. Fletcher (2013).Exercise training improves cardiac autonomic imbalance following physical activity. International Union of Physiological Societies abstracts PCC062.