headway

Aging touches everyone’s life in profound ways. When I returned to Montreal from Calgary in 2010 to become VP (RIR) at McGill, I quite literally moved back home, temporarily taking up residence with my elderly parents. This was a learning experience, as I saw first-hand their needs in terms of their health, mobility and care.
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Forget about gorging on antioxidant-rich “superfoods.” Mutant roundworms are boring a hole through one of aging’s most enduring concepts.
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When older people talk about resting their weary bones, they’re not waxing metaphoric: Decades of movement and support takes a natural toll on our bones — a toll that becomes even more pronounced when pathologies come into play.
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It helps to check a map before starting a road trip, so imagine how important it is to know the lay of the land, so to speak, before you crack open someone’s chest. That’s exactly what doctors do to prepare for heart surgery. The technology, though, is far from perfect. But what if doctors could have a 3D map of the aorta before the patient goes under the knife?
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David R. Colman, director of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, passed away unexpectedly on June 1, 2011. Liliana Pedraza, who worked closely with David Colman for 18 years, reflects on her dear friend and mentor.
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Back pain brings with it a host of problems — but brain damage? It’s quite possible that chronic back pain doesn’t just inflict agony, it also impairs cognitive function, and actually reduces grey matter, in certain parts of the brain. But a new study reports that alleviating the pain can reverse those brain changes.
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On November 2, 2011, Brenda Milner will receive this year’s Pearl Meister Greengard Prize from Rockefeller University. The prize recognizes female scientists who have made exceptional contributions to biomedical science, a group that historically has not received appropriate recognition and acclaim.
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Toronto financier Lawrence S. Bloomberg is a fervent believer that active health is a key to reversing North America’s sagging health. By teaming up with Manulife Financial, the McGill grad (MBA’65) has helped to create a $50,000 annual prize that recognizes research achievements in the area of active health.
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Alzheimer’s disease may have you long before you know that you’ve got it: By the time you’ve got symptoms, the disease is (for now) unstoppable. But Dr. John Breitner and researchers at the new Centre for Studies on the Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease are learning how to trace the progress of the disease in people who are not yet symptomatic — opening the door to early therapeutic interventions that might save millions of people from the creeping fog of dementia.
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The longer you live, the greater the chance you’ll develop Alzheimer’s disease. By some researchers’ estimates, up to two-thirds of people in their nineties will show AD symptoms. But, even if the disease is an inevitable byproduct of aging (and the jury is still out on that one), it doesn’t mean that its primary symptom — dementia — can’t be kept in check.
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The McConnell Brain Imaging Centre’s ACE NeuroImaging Laboratory and the Montreal Consortium for Brain Imaging Research are getting a clearer picture (literally) of what Alzheimer’s disease does to our brains.
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Persistence can pay off. Andréa LeBlanc has found what may be a crucial key for X decoding Alzheimer’s disease (where no one was even looking).
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Interdisciplinary research across McGill — including the Bloomfield Centre for Research in Aging, the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders and the Centre for Research on Language, Mind and Brain—is exploring how language works… or doesn’t.
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Five years ago, McGill associate professor of computer science (and co-director of the Reasoning and Learning Lab) Joelle Pineau began collaborating with professor Paul Cohen’s team at École Polytechnique de Montréal. Pineau’s specialty is coding algorithms, while the Polytechnique crew are focused on engineering challenges. Their new “smart wheelchair” senses obstacles and can use programmed maps to self-navigate specific terrains.
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There are over two million drivers aged 65 and up on Canada’s roads. Yet the science of evaluating motorist fitness is inexact — and that’s not good for the many safe drivers who rely on their cars to be independent. Researchers in McGill’s School of Physical and Occupational Therapy are part of a nationwide project to better decide which drivers get the green light.
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McGill biochemistry professor J.B. Collip was searching for new sex hormones. He enlisted Hans Selye, a 29-year-old Austro-Hungarian post-doc, to inject lab rats with bovine ovary extracts, then look for changes to their sex organs. What Selye observed, however, weren’t the expected changes.
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