Studies related to neurodegenerative conditions

Human Harmonized Touchscreen Tasks

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)/Social Science Centre (SSC)

Many disorders - like Alzheimer's disease or ADHD - can affect mental abilities like memory and attention. To explore how these effects could be related to changes in the brain, or to test new drug treatments, scientists often use mice or rats to model these disorders. However, tests of mental abilities can look very different for mice compared to people, and sometimes the results of these tests do not match. To address this issue, we have adapted several mouse touchscreen tests for use with people and are looking for a group of healthy volunteers to try them out. Our goal is to confirm that the tests are working as expected, to compare results to our existing mouse tests, and to collect data for developing future studies.

Mobile Neuroimaging and Mobility in Parkinson's Disease

Thames Hall

Neurodegenerative disorders cause changes to the brain over time. MRI is a powerful tool that has the potential to provide measurements of disease progression and potential treatment effect of disease modifying therapies. Measuring changes, however, can be difficult due to the small size of some brain structures involved. The development of novel MRI scans can aid in the measurement of these changes. MRI scanners with increased field strength (i.e. 7T) improve the resolution of the images but are not available for widespread use. Processing the images to improve quality is a method to create high-resolution images from low-resolution acquisitions. This type of processing has led to more accurate detection of brain structures in MRI data. This study, on healthy human volunteers, aims to compare the data collected at 3T MRI, improved using processing techniques, and compare to high resolution NM-MRI data collected in the same subjects at 7T to validate these processing techniques.

Claustrum

Robarts Research Institute (RRI)

The claustrum is a small, thin and elongated brain area. It has been found to respond to pain, which is a salient perceptual experience (i.e., a feeling that is very noticeable) and requires attention. It remains unclear how the claustrum controls brain networks during attention tasks and or pain. In the current study, we will use high magnetic field (7T) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which is a neuroimaging method that measures the activation of the brain with high detail, to evaluate claustrum function in various conditions.