Emotional processes and higher order executive functions are governed in part by interconnected neural networks that link the amygdala (a brain nucleus in the temporal lobes) to the frontal lobes. Drug addicts, particularly those abusing psycho-stimulants such as amphetamine or cocaine, show impaired cognitive function specific to these particular brain circuits. Recent evidence suggests that the brain regions comprising this circuit may be particularly susceptible to long-term neuro-chemical, anatomical and neuro-physiological alterations following repeated exposure to this kind of drug abuse.
Building on his research as an MSFHR Scholar, Dr. Stanley Floresco's multidisciplinary research program aims to clarify the alterations in brain circuitry that occur following repeated exposure to psycho-stimulant drugs. Behavioural studies will determine how repeated exposure to drugs of abuse in animals disrupt certain cognitive functions known to be impaired in stimulant abusers, such as behavioural flexibility and decision-making. Other studies will investigate how activity in these brain circuits is altered following repeated drug exposure and clarify the cellular mechanisms that underlie the associated cognitive impairments. Investigating the changes that chronic drug abuse creates in these circuits will provide important insight into the abnormal brain function that underlies drug addiction. This could lead to development of treatments for the cognitive dysfunction that occurs with chronic drug abuse.
Viruses are responsible for many of the world's most serious diseases. In Canada, viral infections remain the single most common reason that people seek medical attention. In order to spread infection, many viruses replicate themselves in the nucleus of their host cells. To accomplish this, they must transport their genome into the nucleus – a process known as nuclear trafficking. Today, many aspects of this viral replication and initial entry into cells are well understood at the molecular level. However, very little is known about how viruses deliver their genetic material into the nucleus. Interrupting the trip into the nucleus could prevent the virus from spreading. A detailed description of this process is an important step to developing anti-viral therapy.
Dr. Nelly Panté studies the mechanism by which viruses deliver their genomes into the nucleus of their host cells. In particular, she is focusing on two common and important viruses: Influenza A and Hepatitis B virus. To investigate the trafficking of these viruses, Panté uses a combination of structural, functional, biochemical, and genetic approaches. As well, she uses high-resolution electron microscopy to track the virus’ movement and entry into host cell nuclei. This work is critical for complete understanding of viral infections – not only for targeting viral illnesses, but also for their potential application in gene-delivery technology, such as in anti-cancer gene therapy.
Stroke is the third leading cause of death and the most common cause of adult disability in Canada and worldwide. Nearly half of all people with stroke do not have full use of their arms for daily tasks and seek rehabilitation to help restore their function. Recent discoveries have targeted effective treatments for individuals who are still able to move their wrist and fingers after stroke, but there are currently few therapies for individuals with poorer hand movement ability.
Dr. Lara Boyd is exploring whether learning and recovery of function can be enhanced by pairing direct stimulation of the brain with practice of a new motor task. Her research focuses on two areas: testing whether exciting the brain using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) before practicing a new motor skill will promote faster learning and recovery of former motor function; and determining the effect of stroke severity on motor learning. Boyd expects that pairing brain stimulation and practice will help people with stroke learn new motor skills faster and more effectively than when brain stimulation is not delivered. This research may lead to new therapies to help people with stroke return to their regular activities of daily life. Brain stimulation using TMS may specifically offer an effective treatment for people with poor hand and arm function after stroke.
Dr. Stefan Grzybowski is a family physician clinical investigator and co director of the Centre for Rural Health Research within the Vancouver Coastal health Research institute. He is co-Principal Investigator of the Rural Maternity New Emerging Team, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and also co directs the British Columbia Rural and Remote Health Research Network, a Health of Population Network funded by the Michael Smith foundation. Prior to moving to Vancouver in 1994, Dr. Grzybowski practiced for 12 years as a family physician on the Queen Charlotte Islands/Haida Gwaii.
Dr. Grzybowski’s research has focused on building an evidence base supporting sustainable maternity health services for rural parturient women, translating this evidence into policy and practice and building research capacity for primary care clinician researchers. His interest in rural health services research was fostered by his experiences in facing the challenges of providing limited maternity services in an isolated hospital on the Queen Charlotte Islands without local access to Cesarean Section. His current projects include developing a Logic Model for sustainable rural maternity care in three isolated BC communities, investigating mechanisms in which GP surgery can be supported in BC, measuring population based maternal and newborn outcomes for rural service catchment areas across BC, and measuring stress associated with pregnancy for parturient women living in rural communities.
Low-speed rear-end collisions can generate whiplash injuries, especially when the victim is unprepared for the collision. Neck pain is the most frequent symptom experienced by victims of a car collision, and up to 30% of people injured in a car collision will develop chronic symptoms. In fact 6% of people who develop chronic whiplash from a collision have not returned to work 12 months after the injury. The precise cause of whiplash is not known, but an overreaction in unprepared individuals — known as a startle response — along with the sudden recoil movement of the head, is thought to damage the joints and muscles of the neck.
As an MSFHR-funded post doctoral fellow, Dr. Jean-Sébastien Blouin conducted research that suggested the presence of a startle response when people are exposed to low-speed rear-end collision. Now he is investigating whether the startle response is linked to stimulation of the deep neck muscles, and if activation of these muscles during a collision may increase the risk of injury. With volunteers acting as “crash test dummies,” Blouin is simulating very low speed (1.8 km/hour) collisions to observe their startle response and measure the corresponding muscle activity. He’s investigating the link between a strong startle response during a low speed collision and the development of whiplash symptoms. He’s also exploring if stimuli delivered immediately prior to the collision can inhibit the startle response, possibly providing protection against injury. Findings could contribute to development of a warning device in cars that will help prevent whiplash injuries.
Physical inactivity in adolescence has been linked to a vast array of physical and mental health problems that extend across the lifespan. Canadian adolescents are required to undertake regular physical education as part of their school curriculum, guided by physical education teachers. However, more than half of adolescents are considered not sufficiently active to meet international guidelines for optimal growth and development. In workplace settings, “transformational leadership” is exemplified by business leaders whose behaviours and interactions inspire employees to reach new heights of work performance and self confidence. Transformational leaders inspire, energize and intellectually stimulate their followers. Training programs in business and military settings have also shown that people in leadership positions can successfully acquire and develop these behaviours.
Exercise and health psychologist Dr. Mark Beauchamp is taking this leadership model out of the workplace and applying it to school physical education and health promotion settings. He’s studying whether training physical education teachers in transformational leadership can positively affect the attitudes and behaviours of their students around adopting and maintaining physical activity. If this approach is proved effective, this research could be used to help develop evidence-based initiatives (across Canada and beyond) that inspire a greater proportion of adolescents to become and stay physically active.
Recently, the concept of community social capital – the extent and quality of community social ties – is receiving a great deal of interest from population health researchers and policymakers. This interest stems from efforts to understand relationships between the social and economic conditions of communities and the health and well-being of the people who live in these communities. Research on social capital to date has been focused primarily on the extent of social ties and interpersonal trust in communities. This limited focus has overlooked crucial elements that make community social ties useful for maintaining or improving population health: the various socioeconomic, political, and psychosocial resources that are possessed by members of social networks and how residents access (or are restricted from accessing) these network-based resources.
Dr. Richard Carpiano is determining how specific resources based in neighbourhood social ties, and access to these resources, matter for adult health and well-being. He will analyze one of the best available community health datasets for investigating social capital and neighborhood socioeconomic conditions: the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS). This project has two major benefits. It will extend population health planners’ understanding of community social capital by showing what aspects of neighbourhood social ties matter for health and well-being and how social conditions of local areas have health promoting and health damaging consequences. More broadly, it will help extend population health research on neighbourhoods and local communities by exploring the different ways that social context matters for adult health and well-being.
Health Issue: Conditions in the work environment for many occupations involve hazards to health that reduce the well-being, working capacity and even the life span of working individuals. In 2005, three BC workers per 100 had a work-related injury or illness serious enough to require medical attention and time off work.
Objective: The objective of the research program on Health and the Work Environment is to provide evidence for primary and secondary prevention of work-related illness, injury and disability in order to advance the health of British Columbians. It spans three interconnected themes of a) research data development and surveillance of work-related injuries, illnesses and exposures, b) occupational epidemiology of risk factors associated with work-related injury and illness, and c) policy and program (intervention) evaluation to reduce work-related disability.
Work Plan and Innovation: The research data development and surveillance theme involves the merging of health databases with employment characteristics and work exposure data to map injury/illness rates and exposure groups and identify high risk groups in BC by occupation and industry. To our knowledge, this will be the only population-based occupational research database of its kind in Canada.
The occupational epidemiology theme involves a study of BC firefighters and the relationship between heart disease and exposure to smoke, carbon monoxide, or physical stress; and a study of BC workers in heavy industry and the relationship between back injury and exposure to heavy lifting, awkward postures, or vibration. The innovation of both of these studies involves novel job exposure assessment techniques.
The intervention theme includes an investigation of the effect of compensation procedures to reduce wait time (surgical fee incentive and private clinic surgeries) on return to work and re-injury for workers with musculoskeletal injuries; and a study to investigate if an early intervention program improves return to work or risk of long term disability for health care workers who are off work for 5 days with depression. These two projects provide unique opportunities to inform debates on a) health service delivery models in Canada for musculoskeletal conditions (the predominant source of disability) and b) early interventions for mental illness (the fastest rising source of disability).
Worldwide there are over 300,000 new cases of oral cancer each year with half of these cases dying of the disease; mainly because of late diagnosis. As such, the advanced widespread disease often requires complex and disfiguring treatment, consequently with a huge impact on the quality of life of the patients, at the same time adding stress to the health care system. It is important to prevent and identify the disease at early stages.
In BC, a particular high-risk medically underserved community resides in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES), the location of one of Canada's poorest neighborhood. Residents in this community are at high risk for oral cancer because many are heavy smokers and regular consumers of alcohol, which are the established risk factors for oral cancers. Further aggravating the problem is that many are having complicated immune status; additionally, poor nutrition and oral hygiene and a limited access to dental and medical care.
There is an urgent need to reach this high-risk population to make sure these individuals are equally served. Moreover, a screening program targeted toward such a high-risk community could effectively decrease the suffering and fatal impact attributable to oral cancer. The key focus of my research is to work within high-risk communities to develop a screening strategy targeted towards the hard-to-reach underserved populations where the need is greatest.
The main objective of this study is to establish current research activity in the study of oral cancer and precancers within the context of community-based clinics in a high-risk population in Vancouver. The activities involve: 1) to establish the first oral cancer screening clinic in a high-risk community in BC, 2) to incorporate and evaluate several new visualization tools and molecular markers for the identification of high-risk OPL and early cancer, and 3) to understand the biology of infection and inflammation to OPLs and its role in cancer formation in a high risk community. This work meets the main objectives of the National Cancer Agency, Canada in prevention and early detection of cancers.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is thought to be a chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system, which attacks myelin, a protective material that insulates nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord. Over time, MS can cause loss of balance, impaired speech, extreme fatigue and problems with vision. Currently there is no cure, but treatment with beta-interferons (IFNBs) is available to reduce the frequency of MS attacks. Recent research suggests that the use of IFNBs may increase the risk of cancer. Given the estimated 75,000 Canadians with MS and the increasing popularity of the MS drugs, even a moderate increase in cancer risk could translate into a substantial number of new cancer cases.
Dr. Helen Tremlett is conducting the first study in North America to investigate the effect of IFNB on cancer risk in an MS population. Dr. Tremlett will examine more than two decades of BC data created by linking the BC Multiple Sclerosis Research Groups’ database with the BC Cancer Agency's Registry to determine the overall risk of cancer in the MS population, and the risk among MS patients treated with beta-interferon compared to the general population. Dr. Tremlett’s research will help to determine the background risk of cancer among MS patients, whether widely used treatments are associated with increased risk of cancer, and will also facilitate researchers in evaluating future drugs licensed for MS.
