In her recent research, Jelena Ristic has shown that young children and adults will automatically shift attention to the direction of another person’s gaze. Gaze following behavior emerges shortly after birth, when babies start to follow their parents’ faces and eyes as a cue to interesting events in their surroundings. Consequently, gaze following has been tied to developmental milestones such as language acquisition and social cognitive development. In contrast to healthy children, children affected by social disorders, like autism, show little interest in the human face and often avoid eye contact. Jelena’s current research with healthy children will help identify how developmental milestones are reached and what parts of the brain are responsible for processing of social stimuli. This knowledge may offer a better understanding of human development in general as well as help identify the possible causes of pervasive social disorders such as autism.
Research Pillar: Clinical
Psychosocial predicators of success following memory intervention in older adults
Memory difficulties accompany the aging process. Two common examples include reduced ability to recall recent information or events and problems remembering to do something in the future. Programs have been developed to help older adults, including people with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers, deal with age-related memory changes. Although most benefit from these programs, not everyone responds equally and some do not seem to benefit at all. Little research has been done to investigate how psychosocial factors, such as personality characteristics, coping abilities and emotional status, affect the success of memory intervention programs. In her doctoral research, Patricia Lynn Ebert is assessing the impact of psychosocial factors on adults 70 and older who are in memory programs. Patricia hopes the results will lead to greater understanding of memory function in older adults, improved memory intervention programs, and better outcomes for program participants.
Influences of proprioceptive illusions on human action
Research indicates that people can experience sensory illusions when visual and tactile information are spatially separated. This has important implications for telesurgery, a procedure that permits surgery to be performed at a distance, but where information from the touch of hands and visual information presented on a monitor are separate and feedback is delayed. Manipulating tools under these conditions has not been as precise as hoped for. Erin Austen’s research is studying how a misperception of limb position and movement can affect the ability to accurately grasp, reach or move objects. She is also identifying ways to minimize any negative impact of such sensory illusions. The results of this research will increase understanding of how the brain coordinates behaviour and will contribute to the design of new technology in telesurgery, prosthetic limbs, telerobotics used to perform actions from a distance, and miniaturized tools for minimally invasive surgical procedures.
Glucosamine withdrawal study in Osteoarthritis
Affecting more than nine per cent of people over 63, osteoarthritis is the most common joint disease. Prevalence rises with age, so health care costs are expected to increase as our population ages. Glucosamine is a health food supplement that is widely promoted for treating osteoarthritis pain. Claims have been made that glucosamine may repair cartilage damage and cure osteoarthritis. Glucosamine use has risen dramatically as a result, but there is limited scientific evidence supporting these claims. Dr. Jolanda Cibere is conducting a study with patients taking glucosamine for knee osteoarthritis. Patients are randomly assigned to continue taking glucosamine or to receive identical-looking placebo tablets. Jolanda will assess whether people whose pain was relieved with glucosamine experience a flare up of pain when treatment stops. This research will provide insights about the effectiveness of glucosamine as a treatment for osteoarthritis pain.
Stroke and hemispatial neglect: The efficacy of stimulus alerting on patient rehabilitation
Dr. Bettina Olk is interested in discovering new ways to rehabilitate patients who have suffered a stroke. Her research focuses on hemispatial neglect, a defective ability to perceive items in space opposite to the side of the brain affected by the stroke. For example, a right hemisphere stroke can cause a person to neglect items that appear on the left side. The person may fail to eat food on the left side of a plate or ignore cars coming from the left. During her research training in Germany and England, Bettina extensively studied the impairments caused by hemispatial neglect. Recent research suggests that a short warning tone can help the brain temporarily overcome this disorder and perceive items opposite the brain lesion. Bettina is studying this phenomenon to determine how long the effect lasts, what kind of warning tone works best, whether a different stimulus could be equally effective, and whether non-visual symptoms of hemispatial neglect are also affected. From this work, she hopes to develop effective ways for stroke patients to overcome the disorder.
Airway epithelial injury as a result of corticosteroid-induced apoptosis
In people living with asthma, the cells lining the airway are more sensitive to injury from allergens and other irritants. Researchers have found that these cells have an impaired ability to repair themselves following injury. Dr. Delbert Dorscheid is studying how the inhaled corticosteroids that asthmatics use to control their symptoms may actually contribute to ongoing breathing problems. While corticosteroid benefit asthmatics by suppressing the inflammation of the airway, Dr. Dorscheid’s research has shown that corticosteroid use also causes the death of cells lining the airway. In severe asthmatics, this may create a cycle of repeated injury and incomplete repair that results in permanent damage. Dr. Dorscheid’s is assessing the extent to which corticosteroids may cause permanent damage to airways and also clarifying the mechanisms by which these drugs cause cell death. His goal: the development of treatment options that will have fewer damaging side effects.
Functional interactions between basolateral amygdala and mesocortical dopamine inputs to the medical prefrontal cortex: Electrophysiological and behavioral analyses
As part of a complex, interconnected neural network, the brain’s prefrontal cortex plays an important role in integrating emotional information for complex forms of cognition, such as planning, behavioural flexibility, decision-making and working memory (e.g. remembering a phone number just long enough to write it down). The amygdala — a brain structure residing in the temporal lobe — provides emotional information to the prefrontal cortex. Mesocortical dopamine transmission in the frontal lobes is also important in higher order cognitive processes. Dysfunction of the brain’s emotional and decision-making circuits is believed to be closely linked to diseases such as schizophrenia and drug addiction: patients with these disorders can show structural abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, decreased levels of cortical dopamine and impairments in emotional processes. Dr. Stanley Floresco is investigating the mechanisms through which emotional and decision-making circuits operate, and how their functioning is modulated by mesocortical dopamine. By shedding light on normal functioning in the brain at a cellular and behavioural level, these studies will increase understanding of the processes that underlie abnormal brain function in many psychiatric diseases.
Molecular pathology of familial gastric cancer
Dr. David Huntsman is one of a growing number of health researchers who are equally interested in answering research questions and translating their findings into better clinical care. As a clinician scientist, Dr. Huntsman identifies and studies susceptibility genes for cancer – specific genes that increase a person’s risk for getting a certain type of cancer. Previously, he and his research team detected mutations in a gene called E-cadherin in one-third of families with extreme histories of early onset stomach cancer. This information was used as the basis for offering prophylactic stomach removal for at-risk individuals with one of these mutations. In all 11 individuals who elected to have their stomach removed, Dr. Huntsman’s team discovered tiny, early cancers, undetectable by current diagnostics. Dr. Huntsman is now working to identify new susceptibility genes for stomach cancer so more at-risk families can be medically managed. He is also studying the role of another gene, EMSY, in breast, ovarian and other cancers. His findings may lead to clinical advances in the diagnosis and treatment for many types of inherited cancer.
Investigations of Parkinson’s Disease with quantitative high resolution PET imaging
Affecting approximately 80,000 Canadians, Parkinson's disease is characterized by the lack of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain. Symptoms include progressive impairment of motor function and a significant impact on quality of life. Dr. Vesna Sossi is a medical physicist who brings her expertise in the physics of nuclear imaging to advance understanding of the pathogenesis, progression and specific manifestations of Parkinson's disease, as well as the biochemical results of therapeutic interventions. Currently, she is developing a new method for using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to study the dopaminergic system (the brain's production and use of dopamine) at varying stages of the disease. PET is a non-invasive diagnostic imaging technique for measuring the metabolic activity of cells in the human body. In addition to providing information about disease progression, this work may provide important insights into how the brain compensates for decreased dopamine levels during early stages of Parkinson's.
The effects of two training regimens on body balance, reaction time, muscle strength and bone strength in postmenopausal women with Osteoporosis: A six-month RCT
Because they have low bone mass, women with osteoporosis are at increased risk of fractures caused by falls. Reducing both bone loss and the risk of falling are essential in helping women prevent fractures. While previous research has shown that regular physical activity can optimize bone health and reduce the risk of falling by improving muscle strength, reaction time, and balance, little is known about what types of exercises are most effective. Teresa Liu-Ambrose is examining which exercise program works best for women who are at risk for falls: exercises that focus on either strength or agility, or programs that incorporate exercises for strength and agility equally. The findings from Teresa’s study will be incorporated into community-based exercise programs throughout BC to help women with osteoporosis reduce their risk of falls and fractures. In addition to improving quality of life for women with osteoporosis, a decrease in fractures would also lessen the enormous health care costs associated with fall-related injuries.