Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Speech-Evoked Brain Activity Is More Robust To Competing Speech When It Is Spoken By Someone Familiar, Brainscan , Western University, Ingrid Johnsrude

Research Summaries

The representation of spoken-sentence information in specific regions of the brain is more resistant to interference by competing speech if the target talker is familiar. The posterior temporal cortex represents information about target speech more robustly in the presence of competing speech when the target talker is a friend or partner. We have also shown that the relative robustness of the representations for a familiar, compared to an unfamiliar, voice aligns with the intelligibility benefit that the listener gains from that familiar voice.

Can Training Improve Speech Intelligibility And Voice Recognition?, Ingrid Johnsrude

Research Summaries

We found that people learn voices very rapidly. We are able to recognize a new voice (and distinguish it from other voices) accurately after as little as 10 minutes of training. While recognition of a voice seems to plateau quite quickly (our recognition doesn't improve with more training), intelligibility does keep improving as training continues up to one hour. We think the benefits of voice familiarity (such as improved intelligibility in everyday settings, helping people with hearing loss or jobs in noisy environments) can be achieved through deliberate training.

Epilepsy Risk Among Survivors Of Intensive Care Unit Hospitalization For Sepsis, Tresah C. Antaya, Britney N. Allen, Lucie Richard, Salimah Z. Shariff, Gustavo Saposnik, Jorge Burneo

Neuroepidemiology Research Unit Project Summaries

Research Summary: Key Findings

• 407 (0.28%) patients developed epilepsy within 2 years of their ICU discharge, 103 (25.3%) of whom were exposed to sepsis.
• Sepsis survivors were significantly more likely to develop epilepsy, relative to non-septic ICU survivors.
• Among sepsis survivors, epilepsy risk increased with age and was higher among those with chronic kidney disease.

Interdisciplinary Lens On Indigenous Health Iniquities: Planning, Nursing, Anthropology, Geography, Education, Chantal Francouer, Alana Kehoe, Ivy Tran, Steven Vanloffeld, Lillian Woroniuk, Jacob Renaud

2019 Cohort

Indigenous peoples experience poorer health outcomes on almost every measure of health and wellbeing, when compared to the rest of Canada. For decades researchers have been working independently on addressing health inequalities, yet little progress has been made on closing the gap. This Discipline-specific way of thinking is too narrow and neglects indigenous ideologies of holistic approaches to health. An interdisciplinary approach to indigenous health research provides a more collaborative and integrated opportunity to address the multidimensional aspects of health. This paper has the goals to contribute to the limited research on interdisciplinary indigenous health research.

The Application Of Community-Based Participatory Research (Cbpr), Riley Kennedy

2019 Cohort

Community-based participatory research is a contemporary research methodology used largely in health research. Community-based participatory research works to balance power and control in research. Indigenous people around the world have had an continue to have an uncomfortable research. Community-based participatory research is viewed as a way to do ethical research with Indigenous people. This project seeks to understand factors that influence community-based participatory research on Indigenous health using a narrative literature review approach.

Examining Indigenous Learner Recruitment And Retention Strategies Through An Environmental Scan Of Canadian Medical Schools, Sebastian Deagle

2019 Cohort

The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada’s Calls to Action Report outlined the need to better resolve the disparities in health status between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadian population. IN response, several Canadian medical schools began implementing recruitment and retention strategies to increase Indigenous matriculation. This is crucial, as Indigenous physicians are more likely to practice – and provide culturally-competent and comprehensive primary care – in Indigenous communities than physicians of other ethnicities. Therefore, enhancing Indigenous medical workforce development programs will have a strong return on investment in terms of improving the health status of Indigenous populations. However, while …

Interdisciplinary Lens On Indigenous Health Iniquities: Planning, Nursing, Anthropology, Geography, Education, Chantal Francouer, Alana Kehoe, Ivy Tran, Steven Vanloffeld, Lillian Woroniuk, Jacob Renaud

Learning with your Head & Heart

Indigenous peoples experience poorer health outcomes on almost every measure of health and wellbeing, when compared to the rest of Canada. For decades researchers have been working independently on addressing health inequalities, yet little progress has been made on closing the gap. This Discipline-specific way of thinking is too narrow and neglects indigenous ideologies of holistic approaches to health. An interdisciplinary approach to indigenous health research provides a more collaborative and integrated opportunity to address the multidimensional aspects of health. This paper has the goals to contribute to the limited research on interdisciplinary indigenous health research.

The Application Of Community-Based Participatory Research (Cbpr), Riley Kennedy

Learning with your Head & Heart

Community-based participatory research is a contemporary research methodology used largely in health research. Community-based participatory research works to balance power and control in research. Indigenous people around the world have had an continue to have an uncomfortable research. Community-based participatory research is viewed as a way to do ethical research with Indigenous people. This project seeks to understand factors that influence community-based participatory research on Indigenous health using a narrative literature review approach.

Examining Indigenous Learner Recruitment And Retention Strategies Through An Environmental Scan Of Canadian Medical Schools, Sebastian Deagle

Learning with your Head & Heart

The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada’s Calls to Action Report outlined the need to better resolve the disparities in health status between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadian population. IN response, several Canadian medical schools began implementing recruitment and retention strategies to increase Indigenous matriculation. This is crucial, as Indigenous physicians are more likely to practice – and provide culturally-competent and comprehensive primary care – in Indigenous communities than physicians of other ethnicities. Therefore, enhancing Indigenous medical workforce development programs will have a strong return on investment in terms of improving the health status of Indigenous populations. However, while …

Developing A Mechanistic Understanding Of Crossmodal Reorganization Following Sensory Loss, Brainscan, Western University, Blake E. Butler, Brian Allman, Ravi Menon

Project Summaries

Our long-term goal is to understand how plasticity reshapes circuits in the brain in response to atypical early experiences. This will allow us to better understand how the Deaf brain processes the world around us, and will make clear the challenges that must be overcome to optimize the function of cochlear implants and prostheses designed to restore sensory functions more broadly.

Can Self-Efficacy Training Improve Memory And Functional Activation In Older Adults With Mild Cognitive Impairment? A Proof-Of-Concept Intervention Study, Brainscan, Western University, Lindsay Nagamatsu, Derek Mitchell, Paul Minda, Amer Burhan, Becky Horst

Project Summaries

The goal of this study is to examine the changes in brain activity after a memory self-efficacy training program to better understand the mechanisms of memory self-efficacy. We will conduct a proof-of-concept six-week memory self-efficacy intervention in older adults with MCI, in order to demonstrate that self-efficacy impacts brain function. This will allow us to determine whether self-efficacy interventions may be a potential strategy for combating AD in the future.

Developing And Validating Tools To Assess Higher Level Cognition In Children And Adolescents, Brainscan, Western University, Bobby Stojanoski, Marc Joanisse, Ryan Stevenson, Cambridge Brain Sciences Inc.

Project Summaries

Collaborating with CBS, we will create a unique platform for understanding, detecting and predicting delays in cognition during the formative period from childhood to adolescence. The aim of this project is to develop and validate a battery of tests specifically for children and adolescents between the ages of 7 and 15 to measure various aspects of higher-level cognitive abilities. These include short-term and episodic memory, planning, reasoning, verbal abilities and executive functioning (those processes necessary to control behaviour, such as controlling attention and inhibition, working memory, reasoning and problem solving).

Multi-Area Organization Of Saccade-Evoked Traveling Waves, Brainscan, Western University, Julio Martinez-Trujillo, Lyle Muller, Adam Williamson

Project Summaries

In this project, we will employ new, large-scale electrophysiological recording techniques to sample widely across the visual system. It will allow us to test our hypothesis that neural traveling waves coordinated across multiple areas contribute to perceptual stability during eye movements. Using our newly developed signal processing technique to track traveling waves moment-by-moment in noisy multichannel data, we will detect and quantify them across multiple visual areas.

Detecting Fine-Grained Population Codes In Human Prefrontal Cortex, Brainscan, Western University, Marieke Mur, Julio Martinez-Trujillo, Ravi Menon, Joe Gati

Project Summaries

In this project, we will develop techniques for improving our measurement resolution so that we can gain access to prefrontal population codes. We will combine high-field fMRI with pattern analysis techniques to unlock population coding in the prefrontal cortex. This is essential for understanding how the brain supports higher-order cognition, and ultimately, for treating dysfunctions of cognitive flexibility in the clinic.

The Risk Of New-Onset Epilepsy And Refractory Epilepsy In Older Adult Stroke Survivors, Jorge G. Burneo, Tresah C. Antaya, Britney N. Allen, Andrea Belisle, Salimah Z. Shariff, Gustavo Saposnik

Neuroepidemiology Research Unit Project Summaries

Research Summary: Key Findings

• Stroke is a common cause of epilepsy in older adults, but little is known about stroke-related epilepsy or its outcomes in this population.
• 1.1% of older adult stroke survivors developed epilepsy in this study, of whom 12.9% developed refractory epilepsy, indicating that this population is particularly responsive to treatment.
• Over 85% of deaths in this population are not due to stroke or epilepsy.

Characterizing Auditory Cortical Receptive Fields, Brainscan , Western University, Ingrid Johnsrude, Alex Billig, Matthew A. Howard Iii, David Steven, Jorge Burneo

Project Summaries

Through this research we have a unique opportunity to explore how auditory cortices respond to naturalistic stimuli and how that response changes with different tasks. This foundational work is critical if we are to understand abnormality in auditory cortices in disorders such as autism, specific language impairment, auditory processing disorders and prolonged auditory deprivation (due to hearing loss).

Evaluating Cognitive Impairment, Imaging And Blood Biomarkers In A Pre-Clinical Model Of Concussion, Brainscan, Western University, Arthur Brown, Marco Prado, Rob Bartha, Ravi Menon, Mark Daley

Project Summaries

The foundational milestone for the research, that we are addressing in this project, is to demonstrate that cognitive impairments in mouse models and humans are similar by using touchscreen technology. We will also be applying fMRI and MRS analyses to mouse models since they are analogous to that used in human studies - it will help us establish relevant endpoints for the studies as part of understanding the underlying characteristics, pathways and effects of concussion.

Imaging Fetal Brain Connectivity In High Risk Pregnancy, Brainscan, Western University, Sandrine De Ribaupierre, Barbara De Vrijer, Charles Mckenzie, Roy Eagleson, Simon Levin, Jacqueline Olgivie

Project Summaries

Our hypothesis is that differences in the regional connectivity within the fetal brain (the structural and functional connections between regions of the brain) can be observed with fetal fMRI as early as in the second trimester of pregnancy.

If we can detect differences in an at-risk fetal brain and associate that with plancental and maternal data, we could recommend interventions, such as diet or medication changes, and then monitor the impact of treatment on the fetal brain.

Using Automated Touchscreen Tasks For Cognitive Assessment In A Novel Model Of Parkinson's Disease, Brainscan, Western University, Flavio Henrique Beraldo De Paiva, Marco Prado, Vania Prado

Project Summaries

This research will focus specifically on evaluating cognitive flexibility (the ability to respond and adapt behaviours to changes in the environment), cognitive dysfunction (changes in the intellectual processing and reasoning that impact daily functions, to a greater severity than what might be expected from typical age-related decline) and long-term memory in a PD model using touchscreens.

Imaging Visually-Evoked Cortical Activity, Brainscan, Western University, Blake E. Butler, Stephen Lomber, Kyle Gilbert, Mathias Dietz

Project Summaries

This work will significantly inform our understanding of 'neural plasticity', the ability of the brain to respond and reorganize to environmental changes or following an injury or disorder. It is also our hope that the results of this program will inform the design of devices to restore hearing - it might enable tuning of those devices to restore sensory representations in the brain in a patient-specific manner. We believe this will significantly reduce the impact of cognitive disorders that arise as a result of abnormal perception both in children and in older adults.

Genetic Manipulation Of Lactate Metabolism To Regulate Memory And Alzheimer's Disease Pathogenesis, Brainscan , Western University, Robert Cumming, Robert Bartha, Tim Scholl

Project Summaries

Our project will attempt to determine the relative importance of astrocyte or neuronal directed lactate generation on memory by modifying mouse models to either suppress or overexpress the lactate producing enzyme in either cell type. Using these newly created transgenic mouse models, we aim to understand the processes of production and utilization of lactate and its effect on memory and cognition in health and in AD across the lifespan. The outcome of our study may lead to entirely new clinical approaches to treating cognitive and neurodegenerative disorders via drugs which alter lactate metabolism.

State-Of-The-Art Clinical Assessment Of Hand Function, Brainscan , Western University, Joern Diedrichsen, Naveed Ejaz, John W. Krakauer, Kevin Olds, Robert Teasell, Neil Duggal, Andrew Pruszynski

Project Summaries

We have assembled a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, surgeons, clinicians and neuroscientists from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Western University to develop a new device for assessing hand function. It will be capable of sensitively measuring fingertip forces across all five fingers and along all movement directions. Then we can use this device to develop and validate a clinical hand assessment for patients with brain injuries.

Single-Photon Calcium Imaging For Interrogating The Circuitry Of The Frontoparietal Cognitive Control Network, Brainscan , Western University, Stefan Everling, Ravi Menon, Liya Ma

Project Summaries

We will use miniscopes to detect activities in the frontal eye field, a brain region responsible for voluntary eye movements and perception and awareness in the field of vision. The detection of neuronal activity with calcium imaging can then be compared with the visual stimuli and eye movements expected. If successful, this project will show the feasibility of calcium imaging using miniscopes in this way and open the door for future work to expand our understanding of frontoparietal cortical circuits.

Development Of Fmri Compatible Reversible Deactivation To Examine Cerebral Networks, Brainscan , Western University, Stephen Lomber, Blake Butler, Stefan Everling, Blaine Chronik

Project Summaries

This study will permit us, for the first time, to examine the effects of deactivation of one cortical site on large-scale neural networks. It will permit neural networks to be functionally disassembled and the consequences of 'reversible' lesions, strokes or tumors to be assessed and modeled before they occur.

Magneto-Vestibular Stimulation (Mvs): Effects On Behaviour And Resting State Networks, Brainscan , Western University, Brian Corneil, Stefan Everling, Joe Gati, Pieter Medendorp

Project Summaries

The MRI environment can stimulate the balance sensors within the inner ear. This is known as magnetovestibular stimulation (MVS), which occurs within the inner ear. It arises because of biophysical interactions between the fluids within our inner ear, the balance sensors and the magnetic field within an MRI machine.

This vestibular system usually deteriorates with aging and is commonly dysfunctional in disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and following concussions and strokes.

Diffusion Mri Modelling Of The Cortex Informed By Macro- And Myelo-Architecture, Brainscan , Western University, Ali Khan, Corey Baron

Project Summaries

The overall goal of this transformative program is to develop novel imaging and analysis techniques for evaluating cortical architecture, providing a means to characterize and quantify structural features that have been invisible to MRI until now.

Neurocognitive, Genetic And Environmental Risk Factors Of Learning Disorders In Children, Brainscan , Western University, Marc Joanisse, Daniel Ansari, Lisa Archibald, Elizabeth Hayden, Janis Oram Cardy, Ryan Stevenson, Jeffrey Gruen

Project Summaries

Our research has already uncovered a range of behavioural and neural factors that can differentiate between children whose development is impaired and those whose development is progressing typically. Intriguingly, our recent findings have also suggested that multiple learning disorders are often present in children with general cognitive difficulties like autism spectrum disorder and ADHD. However, a common feature of research in this area is that of a ‘distinct syndrome’ approach, only studying childhood disabilities separately.

Development Of A Novel Pharmaceutical To Prevent Noise-Induced Hearing Loss, Brainscan , Western University, Brian Allman, Paul Walton

Project Summaries

To limit the damage caused by noise-induced oxidative stress, we intend to determine the most effective way to deliver a customized version of catalase to the vulnerable sensory hair cells in the cochlea. We will conduct experiments to explore how best to 'package' and deliver catalase to the subject.

Investigating Vta, Snc And Dopamine Projections In The Brain Using Mri, Brainscan , Western University, Penny Macdonald, Ali Khan, Adrian Owen, Ravi Menon

Project Summaries

By using a multi-modal imaging approach - combining a number of different imaging techniques - we will seek to understand the dopaminergic pathways of the brain. While all neurons depend on neurotransmitters such as dopamine to communicate (since neurotransmitters are responsible for transmitting signals between neurons in the brain), very few neurons actually produce dopamine.

Recording Neuronal Activity Using Miniscopes, Brainscan , Western University, Marco Prado, Sylvian Williams, Vania Prado, Salah El Mestikawy

Project Summaries

Our overarching goal is to understand how the striatum can select between competing options to favor goal-directed behaviors or the establishment of habitual control. This will provide fundamental and transformational insights into the regulation of cognitive functions by co-transmission.