Clinical Research/Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
The Western Institute for Neuroscience is committed to fostering collaborative research between basic and clinical researchers in neuroscience by bridging the gap between laboratory research and clinical practice.
The Clinical Research/Postdoctoral Fellowship program was launched in November 2021 for this purpose and offers competitive two-year fellowships for individuals with clinical degrees or PhDs with co-supervision by a clinician and a basic scientist in neuroscience. This program allows fellows to spend some of their time working in a clinical setting, but the majority of their time focused on research.
The successful applicants for the Clinical Research/Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in 2022 are:
Roberto Budzinski
Clinical Research/Postdoctoral Fellow
PhD, Physics - Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil.
Spatiotemporal dynamics in epilepsy: analysis and models for cortical stimulation in iEEG
Supervisor(s): Dr. Lyle Muller, Dr. Seyed Mirsattari, and Dr. Ján Mináč
Research Information:
Epilepsy affects millions of people in the entire world and it is one of the most common neural diseases. In the case of pharmacoresistant epilepsy, the seizures cannot be controlled with medication. The standard procedure for these cases has been surgery intervention, in which a portion of the brain (responsible for the generation of the seizures) is removed. It is urgent to better understand the mechanisms behind this issue in order to create new diagnostics and treatments for this neurological disease. In this project, we aim to combine mathematical modeling and computational neuroscience with clinical, empirical data to understand the properties of pathological synchronization during the disease state. To do so, we will use a large-population model (Kuramoto oscillators) with data for long-range connectivity in the human brain. The central hypothesis of the model is that both structural connectivity and time delays due to axonal conduction shape large-scale cortical dynamics during epilepsy. Our model will allow us to understand better the spatiotemporal dynamics in epilepsy and also the effect of cortical stimulation in this phenomenon. Finally, we will collaborate with Dr. Mirsattari, where we will study the predictions of our model with empirical data. This allows us to test our hypothesis and further understand the properties and mechanism of this important neurological disease.
Kathleen Lyons
Clinical Research/Postdoctoral Fellow
PhD, Psychology - Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
Investigating how sensory phenotypes in neurodevelopmental disorders relate to clinical symptomology, cognitive abilities, and neural features
Supervisor(s): Dr. Ryan Stevenson and Dr. Rob Nicolson
Research Information:
One prevalent feature of both autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is atypical sensory processing; autistic children and those with ADHD sense and perceive their world differently from typically developing children. Although sensory differences are commonly reported in both ASD and ADHD, the presentation of these symptoms vary drastically across individuals. Despite its pervasiveness, differences in sensory processing have yet to be directly compared between these two diagnostic categories. Comparing these distinct sensory profiles may allow for the discovery of transdiagnostic mechanisms shared between autism and ADHD. Additionally, characterizing this heterogeneity in sensory processing will help inform targeted strategies of support. The aim of this proposed work is to compare sensory phenotypes in ASD and ADHD, and to investigate how these profiles relate to cognitive abilities, clinical symptomatology, and neural features. To do this, we will be using the behavioral, clinical, and neural measures from the Province of Ontario Neurodevelopmental Disorders Network (POND) dataset. This dataset includes a cohort of autistic individuals (N = 1,203), individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (N = 1,065), and individuals without any diagnoses (N =295). Cluster analysis will be used to identify sensory features that commonly co-occur within a sample of ASD and ADHD participants separately, allowing for classification of distinct groups of individuals who share a similar sensory profile. We will then use hierarchical linear models and machine learning methods to investigate if clinical features, cognitive abilities, and differences in functional connectivity predict the sensory clusters we obtain. This will be the first large-scale assessment of sensory profiles using both parental reports and behavioral sensory data comparing autism and ADHD. Moreover, we will map out how these sensory profiles relate to differences in clinical, cognitive, and brain features, which may have implications for treatment.
Uma Venkatasubramanian
Clinical Research/Postdoctoral Fellow
PhD, Neuroscience/Signal Processing - University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Characterizing functional and effective brain connectivity in critically ill children at-risk for delirium
Supervisor(s): Dr. Rishi Ganesan and Dr. Yalda MohsenzadehResearch Information:
One out of three critically ill children develop alterations in awareness and attention known as delirium. Children who develop delirium stay in the hospital longer, have worse outcomes after hospital discharge and increase healthcare costs. Moreover, families of children with delirium often suffer from acute distress and post-traumatic stress. However, there are significant gaps in our current ability to predict or diagnose delirium in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Critical care providers presently rely on intermittent and infrequent assessments of behaviour to diagnose delirium. But this approach is subjective, prone to errors and misses the subtype of delirium that is atypical but common in critically ill children.
It is now known that our awareness and attention emerge from how different areas of the brain connect and communicate with each other. As part of the proposed research, we plan to study how electrical signals from different brain regions are related in critically ill children with severe infections at-risk of delirium. By studying brain’s electrical connectivity before, during and after delirium, we will be able to evaluate if connectivity changes precede or accompany clinical delirium. This interdisciplinary project will be the first to describe brain connectivity during the acute phase of critical illness in children; understand how functional and effective connectivity measures changes over time in critically ill children; and evaluate how connectivity measures correlate with clinical delirium and predict long-term functional outcomes. We will also be able to generate effective connectivity-based brain network models to identify the network changes happening in brain during delirium. This first-of-its-kind clinical research could lead to more accurate prediction and more objective diagnosis of delirium in critically ill children.
