VIU Psychology alum Dr. Travis Baker receives $2.5-million grant for research
Little did Dr. Travis Baker know when he first came to Vancouver Island University more than 20 years ago that it would be the start of a successful career in researching new treatments for addiction. Now an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University-Newark’s Centre for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, he recently received a $2.5-million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to continue his research.
“I will be developing the next generation of brain-based therapies for substance use disorders,” he says. “If it wasn’t for the great mentorship I received from VIU, and the excellent learning experience from the program, I have no idea where I would be today.”
Read on to learn more about Baker’s ground-breaking research, and how VIU inspired his current career in neuroscience.
Why did you choose VIU?
In 1997 I was permanently laid off from a job in the forestry industry in Port Alberni due to the poor economy at the time and then moved to Alberta to work in the oil fields like many of my peers. I knew I eventually wanted to return to the Island to pursue academia. During my time in Alberta, I worked with a career counsellor from Port Alberni (as part of a retraining program offered by the forestry industry), and he helped me find a path to university based on my interests. We both agreed that the Psychology program at VIU was the perfect fit for me, given that it had such a good reputation and covered many topics I wanted to study.
Can you share a highlight or two from your time here?
I really did not know what to expect when I arrived on campus, as I was the first from my family to go to university. But what I immediately found after a few classes was that the professors were amazing, classes were a nice size so it wasn’t too overwhelming for me, and the professors were very approachable outside of class. They were eager to chat and help you excel in your program. The learning experience was awesome, and I found a great cohort of students to work with – another benefit of the small class sizes. Meeting people who were like-minded and shared similar interests made the whole experience fun.
Was there a particular professor or class who had a major impact on you?
There were two professors who really helped guide me to where I am today. The late Dr. Tony Robertson first introduced me to neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience. He was such a pleasant individual and so interesting to learn from. Tony provided me with a clear window into the brain and its functions and encouraged me to learn more from him outside of class. He introduced me to human electrophysiology and taught me to record my first brainwave (or electroencephalography), a technique that is the major focus of my research today, and at the heart of my recent research grant. I am forever grateful for his mentorship, and we kept in touch over the years until his passing. After learning of his passing, I dedicated my recent Nature: Scientific Reports publication to him. This study is one of the first of its kind to combine mobile-EEG and virtual reality to record EEG from people actively walking in a virtual maze to find rewards.
I am also forever grateful to Dr. Elliot Marchant. Without his mentorship, I would never have pursued a career researching drug addiction. He was hired when I was in my second year and he taught courses on neuroscience, drugs and behaviour, and also gave me the opportunity to do actual research. He recognized my passion for research, and I will never forget the day he approached me and asked if I had ever thought about pursuing research in graduate school. My initial response was: “What is graduate school?” He worked with me to actively pursue graduate school. This was all done outside of class, and he was so passionate in seeing me succeed. Without his mentorship in both research and career development, I would not be where I am today.
What have you been up to since graduating from VIU?
After VIU, I completed a Master of Science in Experimental Psychology and a PhD in Cognitive Science at the University of Victoria. I did a post-doc with the University of Montreal’s Department of Psychiatry and at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University (Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, specializing in neuroimaging). Both my PhD and post-doc were supported by a Canadian Institute of Health Research grant, which I am so grateful to have received. After four years of being a post-doc, I was offered an excellent opportunity from Rutgers University in Newark, NJ, where I am today. I am now an Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator of my own lab (Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroimaging and Stimulation). If it wasn’t for the great mentorship I received from VIU, and the excellent learning experience, I have no idea where I would be today.
Tell us about your research and what you hope to accomplish.
With the support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse grant, I am using a cutting-edge, robot-assisted brain-imaging technology called transcranial magnetic stimulation (Ri-TMS) to alter the brain’s response to the use of substances. This could correct processes in the brain that sustain substance-use disorders.
When people make a good choice and get rewarded, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released to help motivate and select that choice in the future. However, drugs of abuse can artificially release large amounts of dopamine, and in turn, can effectively increase the motivational value of drug-related choices. Addiction can thus be thought of as a fundamental problem of reward learning and motivation, such that drugs of abuse can create a motivational reward bias towards choices that lead to substance use while decreasing the motivation for other activities such as going to work or maintaining healthy relationships. We can measure this reward bias in individuals with a substance use disorder by recording a brainwave called the reward positivity.I hope to then use Ri-TMS to flip the brain’s response to substance use and reverse that bias, as measured by the reward positivity.
The overarching goal of this research is to reduce the frequency and severity of neurocognitive deficits among individuals with substance use disorder, and I anticipate that counteracting this reward bias may not only improve goal-directed processes, but may increase substance users’ success in treatment, and maintaining treatment goals.
What advice would you share with VIU students considering a career in research?
You are in a very nurturing learning environment. Be passionate about your studies and find ways to excel in your research direction within and outside of VIU while you are pursuing your degree. Look at the long-term goals of your studies, and always plan ahead with the advice from your mentors, they are there to guide you. VIU provided me with the foundation to achieve excellence in research and academia, so be confident in your studies and degree, and know that there will be more in store for you in the future. There will always be successes and failures in your endeavours, but trust that the foundations you are receiving at VIU will guide you through all of them.
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.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
