Marco Gallo is using Caenorhabditis elegans (a small worm) as a model organism to determine how mitochondrial 2-oxoglutarate carrier (OGC) affects aging and insulin signalling. He is studying how this protein interacts with the insulin pathway, and how it affects the development and function of mitochondria, which serve as the cell’s energy source. The proposed mechanism by which OGC is involved in the occurrence of diabetes is by modulating insulin signalling (the cascade of molecular events that result in insulin production). A related version of this protein (B0432.4) is also found in C. elegans. In worms, suppression of this protein resulted in a 20 per cent increase in their average and maximum life-span & in changes in the levels of insulin secretion. Gallo’s research aims to identify the mechanisms that mediate the interaction between OGC and insulin signalling. He is addressing this question with work on C. elegans, mouse & human cell lines. This work could shed more light on the changes that occur in the mitochondria and lead to metabolic diseases, with an emphasis on diabetes.
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Expiratory flow limitation, dynamic hyperinflation and respiratory muscle fatigue during exercise in men and women
The act of breathing is a complex physiological process involving the interaction of numerous respiratory muscles and a neural control network. These respiratory muscles are the only skeletal muscles in the body whose functioning is necessary to sustain human life, making their ability to resist fatigue very important. Despite this, research has shown that high intensity exercise can induce respiratory muscle fatigue. Given the life-sustaining role of the respiratory muscles, it is important to understand the mechanisms of fatigue, how it is best detected, and how the human body responds and adapts to fatigue. Also, research suggests that physiological and anatomical differences may make women more susceptible to respiratory muscle fatigue compared to men. However, there are no studies that have systematically examined sex-based differences in respiratory muscle fatigue, and the “normal” pulmonary response to exercise in women is not well understood. Jordan Guenette was previously funded by MSFHR for his early PhD work identifying the respiratory limitations women face as they age. Now, he is examining the mechanisms and consequences of respiratory muscle fatigue in men and women during whole body exercise. His study will determine if the smaller lungs and airways in women cause greater respiratory muscle fatigue compared to men. He will also investigate whether high levels of respiratory muscle work reduce blood flow to other parts of the body and are responsible for impairment of whole body exercise performance. Guenette’s project will address questions significant to both basic and clinical science, outlining how men and women differ with respect to the normal pulmonary physiology of exercise. His findings have the potential to influence exercise rehabilitation programs for a variety of patient populations, and exercise prescription to prevent disease in healthy individuals.
Metacognitive factors in smoking: causal effects of maladaptive appraisals of cravings, thought suppression and nicotine withdrawal on craving severity
Cigarette smoking is directly responsible for the deaths of more than 45,000 Canadians each year. Although the majority of current smokers want to quit, smoking cessation can be extremely difficult. Since smokers are more likely to lapse after experiencing intense, persistent and distressing cravings, identifying factors that influence the severity of smoking-related thoughts, images and impulses is critical for understanding and preventing cessation relapse. Recent theories on the role of metacognitive processes in psychopathology hold promise for increasing our understanding of this important health issue. Metacognition refers to how people think about and react to unwanted thoughts and impulses. In her Master’s level research, Elizabeth found that among individuals attempting to quit smoking, metacognition is associated with nicotine craving severity and smoking cessation difficulty. Specifically, smokers who viewed their cravings as more important to control and more personally meaningful experienced more frequent, distressing and persistent cravings and were more likely to relapse one month later. Elizabeth is now building on this research, investigating the causal factors that contribute to personally meaningful interpretations of cravings, in relation to the effects of acute nicotine withdrawal and efforts to control thoughts about smoking. The results of Elizabeth’s research will help build understanding of the psychological factors that increase the risk for smoking relapse. They may also lead to innovative clinical strategies focused on appraisals and responses to cravings.
Logic, intuition and delusions: dual stream processing biases in decision-making
Delusions, a key characteristic of schizophrenia, are fixed false beliefs that are firmly held despite convincing evidence to the contrary. An underlying mechanism that can account for this debilitating symptom remains elusive. “Dual-stream information processing” is a decision-making model that divides reasoning into two separate components: a fast, intuitive stream, and a slower, logical stream, similar to our understanding of decisions made by the “”heart”” or “”gut”” versus those made by the “”head””. For most decisions, intuition and logical reasoning converge onto the same conclusion. However, in instances where intuition and reason do not agree, there may be processing differences between healthy people and people with schizophrenia. Healthy people show a bias toward the logical stream, prompting them to more carefully examine the available evidence. In schizophrenia, individuals may not detect conflict between the two streams and may not have a bias toward the logical conclusion. This could enable their erroneous intuitive interpretations of events to endure unchallenged, leading to delusions. William Speechley is testing this hypothesis by studying how people make sense of conflicts between the intuitive and logical streams of reasoning. Healthy individuals and delusional schizophrenia patients will be given reasoning tasks and their brain activity will be recorded using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). He predicts that healthy controls and delusional schizophrenia patients will differ when the two streams of reasoning conflict, and that the patient group will not adequately recruit logical reasoning areas of the brain during conflict. He also expects that fMRI will indicate greater activity in areas relating to intuitive processing among schizophrenics. This research will make a significant contribution to our understanding of the cognitive basis for the formation and maintenance of delusions in schizophrenia, potentially leading to more effective treatment strategies.
Urban renewal, drug related disorder and displacement: implications for health and HIV risk behaviour among injection drug using populations
It is estimated that 269,000 Canadians have injected drugs in the past year; statistics reveal that almost 20 per cent of all newly-recorded HIV infections are associated with injection drug use. High risk behaviours associated with injection drug use have made injection drug user populations especially vulnerable to HIV infection. This is particularly evident in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, which has experienced an explosive HIV epidemic among local injection drug users. For several years, this neighbourhood has felt the effects of new developments squeezing out older, low-income housing. This ongoing revitalization of Canada’s poorest postal code will soon be coupled with the upcoming 2010 Olympics. It is also expected that targeted policy interventions will be initiated to reduce the appearance of public disorder, particularly open illicit drug scenes. The implications for current residents are significant. The coming years have the potential to bring a massive displacement of injection drug users out of the Downtown Eastside, away from where most of their health and social services are currently situated. Kora DeBeck is monitoring how public policy changes related to urban revitalization affect risky behaviours and health among injection drug users. She is analyzing data from established cohort studies, which currently follow more than 2,000 injection drug users. Not only will DeBeck’s work help local policy makers respond to changing health service needs within Vancouver, it will also inform other cities experiencing similar urban transitions.
Ambient air pollution, residential traffic noise, and cardiovascular disease in British Columbia
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide and accounts for approximately one-third of deaths across BC and Canada. Growing evidence has shown that air pollution and residential traffic noise are associated with cardiovascular disease. Chronic exposure to air pollution may induce and accelerate atherosclerosis, and environmental noise pollution is associated with hypertension. Previous studies have not clarified the independent effects of noise exposure and the joint effects of both ambient air pollution and residential traffic noise on the risk of cardiovascular events. Wenqi Gan is investigating if British Columbians exposed to higher levels of air pollution and residential traffic noise have an increased risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attacks, and whether this effect is greater among older age groups and individuals with other existing health conditions. Using air quality monitoring data , calculated environmental noise levels, as well as cardiovascularhospitalization and death records in Metro Vancouver, his study will follow more than half a million residents aged 45-85 over five years. Advanced statistical methods will be used to analyze the relationship between air pollution and noise exposure levels and the risk of cardiovascular events. Gan’s study will help identify the impacts of multiple environmental exposures on the risk of cardiovascular events and will also provide important evidence to support environmental policy making about air pollution, urban design, and transportation planning.
Combined analyses of the environmental risk factors for Lung Cancer in British Columbia and the resulting burden from particulate air pollution, arsenic and radon exposures
Every year, approximately 2,200 British Columbians die of lung cancer and an additional 2,700 are diagnosed with the disease. While tobacco smoke is the primary cause of lung cancer in BC, approximately 25 per cent of lung cancer cases are not attributable to smoking. In fact, lung cancer in non-smokers accounts for the seventh leading cause of cancer death. Studies have found that environmental factors increase the risk of lung cancer in both smokers and non-smokers, including exposure to particulate air pollution, residential radon (a radioactive gas that leeches from soil and building materials), and arsenic in drinking water. These three exposures are widespread throughout BC and affect a large percentage of the population. However, no study has been conducted that determines how many, where and to what levels the BC population is exposed to these environmental carcinogens, or the risks posed to lung cancer development and the resulting burden on lung cancer in BC. Perry Hystad is creating current and historical provincial exposure models for particulate air pollution, radon and arsenic. These results are linked with provincial lung cancer data collected by the National Enhanced Cancer Surveillance System. His research will include exposure assessment, epidemiological analysis and burden of disease calculations. Hystad’s findings will shed light on the risks posed by these environmental carcinogens across BC. Ultimately, this work could help identify potentially susceptible populations and contribute to the development of prevention measures.
Evaluating changes in the social, sexual, and drug-using networks of men who have sex with men (MSM) following testing and an enhanced prevention intervention for acute HIV infection: Applying social …
The primary purpose of this research is to provide insight into how to reduce the rising rate of HIV infection among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Canada. The number of HIV infections in Canada continues to rise annually, with MSM accounting for a disproportionate number of these new infections. Evidence now suggests that individuals are highly infectious during the early stage of HIV infection, and these individuals are responsible for generating 11 to 40% of new infections annually. Indentifying individuals as soon as possible after acquiring HIV infection and providing a risk reduction intervention is necessary to curtail this HIV epidemic among MSM. Traditional HIV antibody testing is unable to detect HIV during this early infective stage; a new technology (nucleic acid amplification test-NAAT) that can identify early HIV infection has recently become available and will be used in this study. Traditional epidemiologic methods have focused on individual-level risk factors (e.g. number of sexual partners, condom use) but these have failed to fully explain transmission dynamics or control epidemic growth. Social network analysis (SNA) is a methodology that considers relationships, and interactions among those with varying risk characteristics in the social context. SNA is increasingly being applied to infectious disease epidemiology and research suggests this is a useful approach to the study of HIV transmission dynamics. MSM who acquire HIV are likely to belong to social, sexual, and drug-using networks whose members have similar risk behaviours. We hypothesize that early HIV detection and risk reduction interventions targeting these individuals, and their networks, will reduce the transmission of HIV. This research will employ SNA to examine and describe the social, sexual, and drug-using networks of MSM diagnosed with early HIV infection using NAAT. Network information will be used to identify networks containing high levels of risk behaviour and networks with a high incidence of early HIV infection. An enhanced prevention intervention will be developed with MSM community participation and implemented among individuals within the network who are engaging in high risk behaviour, and who are prominent in the network. In addition, SNA will be used to evaluate how the networks change over time (post-intervention) considering network structure, sexual mixing patterns, rate of partner change, risk behaviour, and to determine forward HIV transmission events.
Breaking the cycle of peer victimization and maladaptive outcomes among adolescents: building strength through parent, peer, and teacher emotional support
Peer victimization — the experience of being a target of a peer’s hurtful teasing and aggressive behaviour — has major implications for adolescents’ mental health. It’s estimated that 15 to 27 per cent of adolescents are victimized by their peers and approximately 10 per cent of students face severe or chronic victimization by peers. Chronic and frequent victimization experiences can lead to increased levels of depression and anxiety among victimized adolescents and put them at risk for becoming more aggressive over time. Breaking the cycle of peer victimization is a priority; however less is known about the protective factors that will reduce levels of harmful outcomes associated with peer victimization. Rachel Yeung is investigating the associations between peer victimization and emotional and behavioural problems among adolescents across a four-year period. She is examining whether emotional support from parents, peers and teachers can moderate and protect against these harmful outcomes. Yeung will use data taken from a longitudinal Healthy Youth Survey, which followed 664 adolescents in an urban community via individual interviews. Yeung’s findings can support the importance of building existing support systems and fostering new relationships with parents, peers and teachers to prevent long term and negative mental health problems associated with peer victimization. This will also provide a basis for the development of effective prevention programs that aim to break the cycle of peer victimization and its harmful outcomes among older adolescents.
New Perspectives on Gender, Diversity, and Health Policy, Planning, and Services
The primary methods for identifying and responding to differences between men and women in the health context are gender-based and gender-sex-based analyses (GBA/GSBA). While these approaches are intended to consider diversity within each group, they do not always capture how gender interacts with other factors such as race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, geography, ability and age. Not taking these factors into account in health planning, implementation and research can result in real economic and human costs for health care consumers. These include lost opportunities, ill health, suffering and perhaps overall, an ineffective and inequitable health care system. A key challenge facing researchers and policy makers is how to move beyond singular variables (e.g. gender) to understand the complex dynamics at play between gender and health. Dr. Olena Hankivsky is examining how GBA and GSBA are applied in health planning, services and policy in Canada, Sweden, the UK, Australia and the Ukraine. She is exploring innovative improvements for analyzing gender and diversity in a health context. In particular, Hankivsky is conducting a gender and diversity analysis of the most recent health reform initiative in British Columbia — The Conversation on Health. The findings could contribute to developing policy tools and interventions that will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health services and programs for vulnerable and marginalized populations in BC, Canada, and internationally.