Researchers at Western are at the forefront of unraveling the mysteries of the human brain, making significant contributions to understanding diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
President Alan Shepard recently sat down with Lisa Saksida and Ravi Menon, professors at Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and co-scientific directors of BrainsCAN, to discuss the latest advances in neuroscience, cognition and neurocognitive disease research.
Alan Shepard: What is BrainsCAN and how is it transforming brain research?
Lisa Saksida: BrainsCAN is a research initiative at Western with a focus on cognitive neuroscience. Cognition is how we learn, remember, think and pay attention.
Research at BrainsCAN is all about taking that fundamental basic research about the brain – focused on cognition – and using it to have an impact on society. This could be in the form of treatments for diseases of the brain or even educating medical students.
Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s are two of the major diseases we work on. But there are many, many others, including neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and ADHD. BrainsCAN is funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF), which supports institutions or collaboration between institutions for programs to create impact in the real world.
AS: Ravi, how would you explain the work you do?
Ravi Menon: My research is really at the interface of MRI physics and neuroscience and trying to use MRI, which is just incredibly evolving. Even after 50 years, new ways of doing MRI are being discovered on a weekly basis.
It’s a very interdisciplinary environment. Our imaging equipment is used by every faculty at Western from business to education to music. And in each case, the questions being asked are around cognition.
AS: What is MRI and how does it help researchers understand the brain?
RM: MRI, magnetic resonance imaging, is almost 50 years old and allows us to look at the structure and function of the brain in a non-invasive manner. The machines we have at Western are unique and state-of-the-art. We also now have a 15.2 tesla machine, the most powerful in Canada and among the most powerful MRI machines in the world.
AS: Lisa, tell us about your lab.
LS: We are primarily focused on assessment of cognition. My colleague Tim [Bussey] and I invented a system based on touch screens that allows us to assess cognition in mouse models. Typically, the cognition tests used on a mouse are very different from what one would do with a human.So, we developed this iPad-like device where we can give mice tasks identical to the ones we would give to a human patient. If they get it wrong, they get a little signal, like the lights in the box turning on, to tell them it wasn’t the right answer.We have a similar process with human patients. We don’t tell them how to do the tasks. We just say, here are some images, interact with them and see how you do.
AS: What does it mean to be a Canada Research Chair in your area of brain research?
LS: The kind of work we are doing as part of BrainsCAN and the Initiative for Translational Neuroscience is all about teams. Mapping the brain from the molecular, cellular level up to animal and human behaviour is a complex task. What I love about research is being able to bring different scientists together and get them talking to each other. It’s at the boundaries between disciplines and between levels of analysis that the really exciting stuff happens.
AS: What are the challenges Canada faces in dealing with neurodegenerative diseases?
LS: As our population ages, we will see more individuals affected by diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. We really need treatments and solutions for those individuals.
RM: In another decade, 10 to 50 per cent of the population will need assistance of some sort. Just the burden of that care, letalone any sort of treatment, is enough to bankrupt the country. Add the cost of current drugs— which aren’t very good either—and you will see that therapeutics, early diagnosis and assessment need to change. Otherwise, we are in big trouble.
AS: Are we going to find treatments for brain diseases and disorders?
LS: In the last decade or so, the degree to which we’ve developed our understanding of the brain has been immense. We’re developing lots of new technologies to help us understand the brain better at the molecular and cellular level. There is a great promise for developing treatments for brain disease over the next 10 or 20 years.
For example, we might find similar memory impairments in certain forms of dementia and in ADHD.So we might be treating those similar impairments rather than a disease as a whole.
I think we’re on the cusp of starting to develop personalized treatments for brain disease, much like what has happened with cancer treatments. Not everybody who gets dementia has the same kind of dementia. There are different kinds already, but now we are trying to refine treatment for these types, at a molecular level, a genetic level, or even at the cognitive level.
RM: The progression to find treatmentswill occur probably in two steps, with what we’re now learning and what we have learned over the last generation about the brain. We’re getting to the point where we can at least contemplate and in some cases effectively modify the trajectory of disease. That’s the first step. At least we can slow things down. That’s not a cure. Cure is maybe a different approach. That’s the approach Lisa just talked about: rather than treating a particular pathology, we’re actually treating a constellation of cognitive symptoms that are maybe common across a bunch of different disorders.
AS: What do you like best about being a researcher?
LS: I love being able to work on problemswith the potential to have tremendous benefits to society.
RM: The best hours of my day are when I sit with a student talking, debating and scrawling through a problem on my whiteboard, coming up with ideas and how to test them, and sending the student off to do experiments and waiting in anticipation for the results. Sometimes your hopes are dashed and sometimes your ideas are validated, and then you go on to the next one.
AS: Tell me more about working with students and teaching.
RM: Students bring techniques to our labs that they’ve learned in undergraduate summer jobs that didn’t exist when we were going to school. Like machine learning or a lot of electrical engineering approaches. I don’t know how these techniques work and the students do. They are constantly infusing our research with state-of-the-art ideas.
You only get that when you interact with the students and turn them on to the problems that they might want to address. They may want to do research, or motivate somebody to become a doctor, or a venture capitalist who will fund a new drug for underprivileged kids in a resource-constrained part of the world. You just never know where that’s going to go. And you have to interact with students to get that.
LS: Students bring in so much energy and fresh perspectives. My lab members understand the technology they’re using much better than I do. Seeing their approach and eagerness is very motivating for me.Working with them at all levels helps to keep me on my game and is incredibly inspiring.
The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.Watch it here.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
