BrainsCAN Postdoctoral Associates receive CIHR Fellowships

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic and progressive neurological disorder that primarily impairs movement, sometimes accompanied by psychiatric symptoms and cognitive impairment. It affects 100,000 Canadians and costs Canada 558 million dollars each year. Complementing medication, deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective surgical therapy, where an electrode is implanted in the brain to electrically stimulate the designated nucleus (a cluster of neurons) to relieve motor dysfunctions. However, in current DBS therapy, variations in individual surgical outcomes and certain inherent side effects are still not well understood, and non-motor symptoms are rarely addressed, thus complicating the care and management of the disease. New advancements in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), including diffusion and functional MRI, can be used to extract the map of brain circuitry as a complex network to help reveal the mechanisms of neurological diseases. This proposal employs brain network information obtained from large public databases and from the latest 7T MRI technology at Western University to understand the interplay of disease progression, brain connectivity, and the true influence of DBS. The research will use artificial intelligence to transform these insights into software that offers DBS plans tailored to the patient's personal situations with predicted and enhanced surgical outcomes. Finally, we will explore new stimulation targets that can treat both motor and non-motor symptoms of the disease. With the promise to yield new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, this project has the potential to greatly improve the patients' quality of life and to reduce the burden on the healthcare system. Furthermore, the proposed framework is expected to open doors to the DBS treatment of other devastating brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease and depression, and help Canada gain a competitive edge in the research and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Canada is in the midst of an obesity epidemic that is disproportionally affecting children and youth; one third of children and adolescents are classified as overweight and obese. This is of central concern, as not only is obesity associated with poor physical and mental health, but also brain health and cognitive functioning. Adolescents with obesity show widespread impairments in brain structure and function, which manifest as poor cognitive functioning and heightened impulsivity. Such, impairments can have profound and enduring effects on physical, mental, and psychosocial health into and throughout adulthood. Indeed, poor cognitive control has been linked to a variety of adverse health and interpersonal problems, such as substance abuse and addiction and poor academic performance. It is evident that there is a clear need to develop effective clinical strategies that can be used to mitigate obesity-induced alternations in brain health and cognitive control, particularly during the critical developmental period of adolescence. A growing number of randomized trials have linked aerobic exercise to brain health and cognitive functioning, however, no prior interventions have conducted in adolescent populations. Therefore, the feasibility of an aerobic exercise intervention within this population remains unclear. The primary aims of this study is (1) conduct a comprehensive assessment of the feasibility, tolerability and acceptability of the intervention within this population, and (2) assess the preliminary efficacy of aerobic exercise in improving cognitive functioning and brain health. These findings could have wide-ranging applications, not only in establishing transformative and causal evidence demonstrating that aerobic exercise can significantly reduce the impact of obesity-related cognitive dysfunction, but also in the formulation of strategic public policies and priorities aimed at improving neurocognitive functioning in adolescent populations.