News and stories

The second annual Brain Health Awareness Week took place September 14-19, 2015. We would like to thank everyone who attended, our esteemed speakers, community and volunteers for helping us make it a success! Special thanks to Terry Marcotte, CTV News and Adrian Harewood, CBC News  who both took time from their busy schedules to help us Emcee the Progress in Motion: Integrating Parkinson’s Care and Public Debate: Stem Cells: Are they Ready for Regenerative Therapy? events respectively.  

You missed it? Not a problem, you can find, view and share all the videos here!

The 3rd annual Brain Health Awareness Week promises to bring another exciting weeklong series on brain research including our Yoga & YOU for Brain Health event, an opportunity for the uOBMRI to reach out to the community to raise awareness for brain research.

We look to seeing you next year, stay tuned for more details! www.brainhealthawarenessweek.ca

Interested in becoming an Ambassador of the uOBMRI?  Click here.

Stroke patients often spend days or weeks recovering in hospital, and while some rehabilitation services are available during this crucial time, many spend hours each day alone and inactive. 

But now, some stroke patients at The Ottawa Hospital are using this time for speech and language therapy using a mobile tablet-based platform developed by stroke specialist Dr. Dar Dowlatshahi and colleagues. The platform, which is believed to be the first of its kind, is called RecoverNow. It allows clinicians to select various publicly-available stroke recovery apps from the Google Play store and monitor patients’ progress in real-time. 
 

We are pleased to announce the recipients of the uOttawa Centre for Neuromuscular Disease (CNMD) Scholarships in Translational Research (STaR) Awards (2016-2017).

The STaR Awards recognize excellence in research at the master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral levels, for trainees working in CNMD basic science laboratories on any aspect of neuromuscular function or dysfunction.

University of Ottawa physics professor and member of the uOBMRI Andrew Pelling has been named TED2017 Senior Fellow, joining a group of only 10 change-makers from around the world selected among TED’s 414 Fellows for their extraordinary work and contributions to the TED community. 

From the Ottawa Citizen: Richard Naud wants to be a mind reader, wants to understand the many tiny signals of your brain cells, but there’s one problem.

Poster Presentations | Oral Presentations | Group Symposia. We welcome research related to psychology coming from all academic disciplines!
 

Join us to learn more about the exciting initiatives at the research institute and how you can be involved.

The NISE (Neuroimmunology, Stress and Endocrinology) Lab is investigating the neurochemical mechanisms underlying the interaction between exposure to an immune challenge and gonadal hormones during the prenatal and pubertal periods on brain functioning and behavior. Recent findings from Nafissa Ismail’s lab suggest that adult males display more sickness symptoms, greater changes in body temperature and take longer to recover compared to females following the same infection.

Nerve cells in our brains work together in harmony to store and retrieve short-term memory, and are not solo artists as was previously thought, Western-led brain research has determined.

The research turns on its head decades of studies assuming that single neurons independently encode information in our working memories.

Bullying derails potential, a cost that is borne by all Canadians. Bullying creates physical and mental health problems, academic difficulties, and impacts productivity. My research helps identify ways to reduce bullying in schools and communities, thus improving the health and well-being of Canadians.

From the Globe and Mail: This year’s Gairdner Awards, announced Tuesday, honour pioneering work on vaccines, stroke, pediatric care and a range of fundamental discoveries that have advanced medical research. The winners come from around the globe but they share a common passion for discovery. Dr. Hakim was one of the 7 honoured. 

We are excited to share Dr. Gardner’s latest publication in The New England Journal of Medicine. The paper “Out of Sight, Out of Mind — Behavioral and Developmental”

The importance of a good night’s sleep is widely accepted, but what actually goes on in our brains while we’re sleeping remains shrouded in mystery. While students debate whether to pull an all-nighter or hit the hay before a final exam, scientific investigators are debating the link between sleep and memory. 

André Longtin and Leonard Maler have combined their expertise in physics, mathematics and neurobiology to uncover the neural code that underlies the operation of the brain. The University of Ottawa researchers use electric fish to trace the journey of signals as they move through the entire sensory process, observing the hidden traits of brain activity in moments of focus. Their research expands our understanding of neuroscience and benefits the development of artificial intelligence and treatments for neurological disorders. Dr. Longtin and Dr. Maler won NSERC's Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering in 2017.

As part of the uOBMRI Distinguished Lecture Series, Drs. David Park and Mark Freedman will be hosting Dr. Frauke Zipp from the University Medical Centre fo the Johannes Gutenberg University (Germany) on Tuesday, May 16th 2017 

Clinical trial shows that minocycline, an oral acne medication, can slow the progress of relapsing-remitting MS

A common oral acne medication could provide new, affordable treatment options for Canadians suffering from relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, according to the results of a Canadian clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The Phase 3 trial showed that minocycline could slow the progress of the disease in people who have recently experienced their first symptoms.

This video was presented by Rowan (Grade 4) and Avery (Grade 7) at Elmwood School at their School Student Assembly to over 450 students and teachers to raise awareness for Parkinson's.

Dr. Stuart Fogel’s latest work on the relationship between sleep and human intelligence featured in the BBC story: “What Can You Learn From Einstein’s Quirky Habits?” Very interesting read!

From the Ottawa Citizen: Two Ottawa research institutes have formed an unusual partnership aimed at raising $20 million to advance dementia research and patient care. 

The Faculty of Medicine and University of Ottawa Brain and Mind Institute (uOBMRI) would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who visited us on Saturday for Doors Open Ottawa. More than 250 members of the public dropped by Roger Guindon Hall to tour several uOBMRI labs and hear from our researchers about their work. 

The CNMD is hosting the 4th Ottawa International Conference on Neuromuscular Disease and Biology on September 7-9, 2017.  After three previous successful neuromuscular disease conferences in Ottawa, the 2017 conference promises to offer an outstanding program emphasizing recent breakthroughs in basic and translational research and clinical discoveries in neuromuscular disease.

Two of the top researchers in their fields from the University of Ottawa Brain and Mind Research Institute have been announced as recipients of one of the premier accolades in science. Dr. Ruth Slack and Dr. Ian Graham have been elected by their peers to join the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) as Fellows, emblematic of their innovation and renown as the best in their fields. Fellowship includes sitting on panels to advise policy-makers on decisions of great impact such as health care. Already, the two have led advances in patient care in Canada and beyond.

Dr. Roger Zemek was the lead researcher on a comprehensive study involving more than 3,000 children between ages 5 and 18. More than 8,000 children were screened for this study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2016 and gathered data from five centres, including Ottawa.

Ottawa researchers have been awarded nearly $10 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation for new equipment and facilities to support cutting-edge research on neuromuscular diseases and virus-based therapies. “This funding will help us build on recent breakthroughs in our understanding of neuromuscular diseases, design much-needed new therapies and evaluate them in patients,” said Dr. Rashmi Kothary, who leads the $4 million neuromuscular project together with Dr. Bernard Jasmin.

New research led by Dr. Hsiao-Huei Chen reveals that a protein called IRF2BP2 plays an important role in controlling anxiety in mice by influencing microglia, known as the immune system of the brain. Microglial cells can do many things, including fighting infections, promoting inflammation, gobbling up damaged or unwanted brain cells and encouraging healing.

Dr. Michael Schlossmacher grew up in Austria, trained at Harvard and now leads The Ottawa Hospital’s neuroscience research program. His research helped establish a key concept in Alzheimer’s disease and led to a clinical trial of an experimental therapy for Parkinson’s. He is now investigating the link between Parkinson’s and immune system. He will receive the Grimes Research Career Achievement Award from the hospital on October 28, 2017.

Dr. Johnny Ngsee’s team has created the first worm model of a genetic form of ALS called ALS8 that can be used to learn more about the disease and test possible therapies. ALS, or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, is caused by the gradual death of the nerves that control the muscles. There is no prevention or cure, and 80 percent of people with ALS die within two to five years of being diagnosed. Dr. Ngsee’s team created worms with a genetic mutation that mimics the disease.

 “Will I ever walk again?” is one of the first questions a person asks after a spinal cord injury. Because each person’s recovery is different, it’s often hard for physicians to predict what an individual will be able to do in the future. Dr. Philippe Phan’s team, including Drs. Eugene Wai, Eve Tsai and Darren Roffey and contributors from across the country, has made answering this question easier by simplifying an existing prediction tool.

Dr. Antoine Hakim accepted the Canada Gairdner Wightman Award in Toronto for “outstanding research into stroke and its consequences and championing stroke prevention and treatment in Canada and beyond.” He also gave his Gairdner lecture at the University of Ottawa. See highlights and photos.

Dr. Harold Atkins accepted the Till & McCulloch Award, Canada’s top prize for stem cell research. He was interviewed by the Ottawa Citizen about his ground-breaking clinical trial of stem cell transplantation for multiple sclerosis, co-led with Dr. Mark Freedman.

A team of researchers from the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine, led by Dr. Park, has delineated the mechanism by which a gene mutation leads to a form of Parkinson’s disease—namely, the loss of the PINK1 gene. Their findings were published today in Nature Communications, of the highly prestigious Nature family of journals.

From the The Ottawa Hospital - L'Hôpital d'Ottawa: If you were to suffer a stroke, would you want your brain to create more stem cells, replace the damaged neurons or repair the broken blood vessels? A new study led by Dr. Jing Wang shows that fine-tuning a single molecular pathway may allow the brain to accomplish all three of these crucial tasks.

From the The Ottawa Hospital - L'Hôpital d'Ottawa: Dr. Tiago Mestre has received a $197,000 New Investigator Award from the Physicians’ Services Incorporated Foundation to test a new model of care for people living with Parkinson’s disease. This project, called the Integrated Parkinson’s Care Network, was developed in collaboration with Dr. David Grimes. People with Parkinson’s disease often need to be seen by a wide range of professionals both in the hospital and the community, and often this care is not well coordinated. The doctors and their colleagues will implement and test a model that puts patients in charge of managing their condition and delivers care in one location.

From the Ottawa Hospital: Exercise and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are effective in treating certain kinds of depression. But little research has tested them together in post-stroke depression, which affects 20 to 80 percent of stroke survivors. Drs. Paul Albert and Faranak Vahid-Ansari investigated this using a novel mouse model they developed for this condition. Surprisingly, they found exercise had no impact on depression, but SSRIs had a much greater impact than expected.

uOBMRI members Dr. Nafissa Ismail, Dr. Michael Hildebrand and Dr. Abdulmotaleb El Saddik joined CBC’s Quirks & Quarks show to answer listener's questions. Listen to the show here.

He was interviewed for two stories in the Ottawa Citizen about treatments for concussion, and the need for more awareness and support for concussion research.

From the Ottawa Hospital Media: Dr. Robin Parks was awarded $150,000 from CureSMA to see if tiny bits of cells called exosomes can be used to track how spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) progresses and responds to treatment. Dr. Parks’ team previously found that exosomes naturally released into the blood contain similar levels of SMN protein as the affected nerve and muscle cells. This funding will allow them to continue to explore the practicality and accuracy of analyzing SMN protein levels using exosomes.

Developmental Cell published Dr. Derrick Gibbings’s recent paper “Atg5 Disassociates the V1V0-ATPase to Promote Exosome Production and Tumor Metastasis Independent of Canonical Macroautophagy”. Click here to read and learn more.

The uOBMRI team kicked off the 2018 events season with two successful events: the inaugural March for Concussion and the 9th annual Audrey Grant's Better Bridge Event! 

Applications are invited for a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair (CRC) tenure-track position and to be the Director of the University of Ottawa’s Brain and Mind Research Institute (uOBMRI). The uOBMRI was established in 2010 to foster scientific collaborations of the highest quality in the neurosciences and behavioral sciences across the Ottawa region and to integrate basic and clinical research and research training activities related to the brain and mind. To  orchestrate innovative and highly collaborative research, the Institute focuses on seven themes and unites over 250 members from many uOttawa faculties (Medicine, Science, Engineering, Health Sciences, Education, Social Sciences) and affiliated hospitals (The Ottawa Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, The Royal, Bruyère, and Hôpital Montfort) and their research institutes.

The successful candidate will be an international leader in neurosciences and/or mental health research, with strong mentorship skills. The incumbent must also have a demonstrated record of leadership, particularly in managing multidisciplinary teams, seeking out large-scale grants, fundraising, forging and maintaining partnerships. The Director of the uOBMRI will develop a strategic plan for the future growth of the Institute in alignment with the vision of the University of Ottawa and the affiliated hospitals. In addition, the Director is expected to maintain an exemplary research program that complements ongoing research efforts and engages with local, national, and international research networks.

Tier 1 Chairs, tenable for seven years and renewable once, are for outstanding researchers acknowledged by their peers as world leaders in their field. For more information on the CRC Program, visit the CRC website at: http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/about_us-a_notre_sujet/index-eng.aspx. New CRC nominees are also eligible for infrastructure support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to help acquire state-of-the-art equipment essential to their work.

Dr. Mark Freedman was interviewed for a Global TV series on multiple sclerosis. He discussed advances in treatment, including stem cell transplantation (co-led by Dr. Harold Atkins). Stem cell trial participant Jennifer Molson also provided her perspective.

“I think people can have a lot of excitement and realistic hope that we are coming up with better therapies"-Dr. Grimes on the current state of Parkinson’s disease research. Read his interview here.

Want to join the Rosseaux Lab? Click here. 

Dr. Maxime Rousseaux joined the University of Ottawa and the uOBMRI in April. He focused on elucidating mechanisms of neurodegeneration in models of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and stroke during his doctoral training. He returns to Ottawa after a successful stint with Dr. Huda Zogbhi’s lab at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute/BCM, where he established a PD-centered research program that employed genetic screening methods to query the genome for modifiers of toxic protein levels and toxicity. Other accomplishments include receiving a CIHR fellowship, as well as the prestigious Stanley Fahn Junior Faculty Award from the Parkinson’s Foundation.

From uOttawa Media:  

Psychology Associate Professor Nafissa Ismail was awarded the University of Ottawa’s Young Researcher of the Year Award in honour of her outstanding contributions. Since 2012, she has demonstrated an exceptional level of productivity as a young researcher here at uOttawa. Nafissa’s expertise in her field is recognized internationally by her peers. Her research area is novel, yet in line with current problems with mental health in our society. Her investigation focus is on the neurochemical mechanisms through which immune challenge and hormones during puberty alter the brain and behavior. She leads a very large and productive training laboratory named Neuroimmunology, Stress and Endocrinology (NISE) Lab.

Read more here. 

Dr. Simon Hatcher was interviewed by CBC Morning Live about strategies to help first responders at risk of suicide.

Dr. Michael Schlossmacher was interviewed for Scientific American about the connection between Parkinson’s disease, the immune system and the gut.

From the OHRI: Imagine removing blood or skin cells from a patient after a stroke, turning them into powerful stem cells in the lab, and then transplanting them back into the same patient’s brain so they can give rise to new neurons to repair the damage. This is the promise of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology, and new research led by Dr. Jing Wang could help make it a reality. Dr. Wang and her team discovered that metformin, an established diabetes drug, can stimulate neural stem cells derived from iPSCs, helping them integrate into the brain and give rise to more neurons. In a stroke model, animals that received metformin-treated neural stem cells showed signs of increased regeneration in the brain and had faster recovery of gross motor skills compared to animals that received untreated cells. Future research will examine if other combinations of stem cells and drugs could be even better. See Stem Cells and Development for details.

From the OHRI: New research led by Drs. Baptiste Lacoste, Cenk Ayata and Chenghua Gu reveals for the first time exactly how the blood-brain barrier opens during a migraine attack, and how to stop it. Future research could lead to new treatments for migraine and other brain conditions such as stroke. Annals of Neurology published the research and its September cover will feature an image by Dr. Lacoste.

Dr. David Park, alongside Peggy Taillon were at the Tavern on the Falls grand opening event, Rivera Blanc. This evening supported the Memory Collaborative campaign and promote memory & cognition research. Watch their interview here.

From the OHRI Newsroom:

Migraine headaches are often accompanied by electrical waves that slowly move across the brain, causing flashes of light and other visual disturbances. Referred to as “migraine aura”, this phenomenon also affects the brain’s blood vessels, allowing large molecules from the blood to leak into the brain and cause inflammation and damage. New research led by Drs. Baptiste Lacoste, Cenk Ayata and Chenghua Gu reveals for the first time exactly how the blood-brain barrier opens during a migraine attack, and how to stop it.

Our members have been active these past few months promoting important research and initiatives. Click read more for our quick list!

From press release: Dr. Chen wants to help develop therapeutic strategies to counteract brain circuit dysfunctions associated with motor skill-related deficits in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). One strong genetic risk factor for developing an ASD is a specific mutation that researchers have been able to mimic in mice, which has the impact of delaying motor-skill learning. Dr. Chen will image the brains of these mice to elucidate the roles of the hormone and neurotransmitter noradrenaline in motor learning and examine whether stimulating the brain cells that produce noradrenaline can affect motor learning. 

From uOttawa Media: Dr. Diane Lagace, Dr. Jean-Claude Béïque and their team from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and the uOttawa Brain and Mind Research Institute, including first author and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Timal Kannangara, are bringing new hope for stroke recovery.

The team’s work published in Stem Cell Reports shows that stem cells in the adult brain can migrate to the site of stroke damage and become neurons. Although limited in number, these new cells can fire action potentials and are functionally connected with surrounding networks, all defining features of fully functioning neurons.

Dr. Steffany Bennett, holder of the University Research Chair in Neurolipidomics and uOBMRI member, has been appointed as a Special Advisor, Diversity and Inclusion for the University of Ottawa for a two-year period. Learn more about her mandate here.  Great job, Dr. Bennett!

Dr. Nafissa Ismail has recently been selected for the 2018 Ontario-China Young Scientist Exchange Program (YSEP). The goals of the exchange program are to develop long-term research collaborations between Ontario and Chinese institutions, to encourage the development of leadership skills among YSEP participants and to create future "science ambassadors" between the two jurisdictions.

Dr. Ismail will go to Beijing and Shanghai this fall to meet Chinese collaborators in connection with her projects on the microbiome and mental health.