Volume 2, Number 1, Fall 2006 RESEARCH, DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION AT MCGILL UNIVERSITY SPECIAL REPORT BRAIN STORMING McGill’s Taming Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder top minds Softening the ride down memory lane push the School of Head Knocks boundaries of Raising awareness of concussion neuroscience Attacking Alzheimer’s New ways of looking at old problems Next-Generation Genetics How nurture can trump nature Fall 2006 1 MESSAGE FROM THE VICE-PRINCIPAL Volume 2, Number 1 headway 2 NEWS Research, discovery and innovation Dinosaurs in the Arctic, empathy in mice, and more: read about recent at McGill University discoveries and research initiatives at McGill. IN FOCUS Headway is published twice a 6 Home Safe year by the Vice-Principal Shining a light on the dark corners of domestic child abuse. (Research and International Relations) and the Associate Vice-Principal 8 Peace, Love and Religious Pluralism (Communications). A global conference addresses life—and faith—after 9/11. EDITOR 10 Hot Intellectual Properties James Martin Developing economies need progressive ideas about patents, copyright and trademarks. CONSULTING EDITORS Susan Murley Jennifer Towell SPECIAL REPORT ON NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH AT MCGILL SPECIAL THANKS TO 12 Brain Storming Michael Bourguignon McGill researchers are using their brains to better understand the mystery of yours. Frank Desgagnés NEW WAVE Laurie Devine Lydia Dufresne 14 The Trauma Tamer Jane Jackel A new treatment promises relief from post-traumatic stress disorder. Mark Reynolds IN DEPTH Jacquie Rourke Katrin Sermat 16 The Nurture of Things Tara Shaughnessy Think DNA equals destiny? Epigenetic researchers have a different idea. Lisa Van Dusen Pascal Zamprelli 20 Bridge Over Troubled Neurons Marvin Zivitz Nanotechnology meets neuroscience—and it’s creating a whole new way of doing medicine. DESIGN Instructional Multimedia Services 24 The Mind Thief McGill University Science sleuths are hot on the trail of one of the most challenging medical mysteries CORRESPONDENCE affecting our aging population: Alzheimer’s disease. Headway ACT GLOBALLY 805 Sherbrooke St. West Burnside Hall, Room 110 28 Brains Without Borders Montreal, Quebec For over 45 years, the International Brain Research Organization has put knowledge first. H3A 2K6 ACT LOCALLY [email protected] 30 Tackling Concussions Telephone: 514-398-5633 A McGill researcher educates athletes about the prevention and treatment of head injuries. Fax: 514-398-7364 INDUSTRIAL IMPACT Pour recevoir un exemplaire de cette publication en français, 32 The Pain Relievers veuillez communiquer avec The McGill Centre for Research on Pain teams up with a pharmaceutical giant to nous à l’adresse ci-dessus ou consulter demystify the mechanics of pain. http://francais.mcgill.ca/headway/ NETWORKS Publication Agreement Number 35 This is Your Brain on Big Science 40031154 Large questions about the human brain require massive collaboration. Headway can be found online at www.mcgill.ca/headway/ 38 Speaking Your Mind The Centre for Research on Language, Mind and Brain straddles disciplines—and mother tongues—in the quest to understand how language works. FIRST PERSON 40 Breaking Down Barriers Shree Mulay, Director of the McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women, reflects on life as a researcher and advocate. 41 MAKING HEADWAY Patents, undergraduate research and an unforgettable breakthrough in the study Cover photo: Claudio Calligaris of memory. contents Research Message from the Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations) In recent months, McGill has celebrated new recognition of its excellence, with prominent placements in Newsweek’s list of the Top 100 Global Universities and the Academic Rankings of World Universities compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong Univer- sity—as well as being the only Canadian university in the top 25 of the 2006 Times Higher Education Supplement’s World University Rankings. The fact that McGill ranks high among the world’s universities is not incidental. Through its research, teaching and service, McGill has an indisputably positive impact on the city, province and country. A major case in point: McGill researchers currently generate about a half billion dollars in funding each year. Our research initiatives employ thousands of people, generating the knowledge so essential for improving the economy and quality of life for people around the globe. McGill’s leadership position is the result of planning, continuing to build and evolve areas of strength, and helping to ensure both our competitiveness and optimal contribution to society. Which brings us to the human brain, the central theme of this issue of Headway. Neuroscience not only makes for fas- cinating reading, it’s a jewel in the crown of McGill research. In the 1930s, when Wilder Penfield founded the Montreal Neurological Institute, the brain was largely unexplored scientific territory. Since then, we have learned much about brain function and dysfunction. Neuroscience is bridging disciplines and forging networks to allow for bold new initiatives, and we are making strides towards treating— and even curing—a number of neurological disorders and diseases. Researchers at McGill and its affiliated hospitals have conducted significant aspects of this important work. There is palpable excitement and energy among the members of this dynamic group of discoverers, from students to veterans. They are committed to improving the future for humankind, and with ongoing support from both the public and private sectors, they are certain to do just that. McGill’s international recognition feels great—but it’s the achievements behind the kudos that are the real cause for celebration. Denis Thérien Vice-Principal Discovery(Research and International Relations) InnovationMcGill University 1 NEWS Sharing the Pain McGill psychology professor finds mice have feelings After accidentally ploughing open a mouse’s nest more than two centuries ago, Robbie Burns was moved to write “To a Mouse,” an anthropomorphic apology for the creature’s suffering. Now science is affirming Burns’ peculiar instincts: it turns out mice really do have feelings. Well, at least for each other. McGill psychology professor Jeffrey Mogil recently discovered mice recognize—and react to—pain in their peers. Called “emotional contagion,” the reacted much faster than mice whose roomies were in Fotolia Claudio Calligaris phenomenon is suspected to better shape. exist in several primate species. “This is the most striking part to me,” Mogil told the After injecting two mice Times, “that simply looking at an animal in one type with a solution that caused a of pain makes you sensitive to another kind of 30-minute stomach ache, pain in a different part of your body; that this Mogil observed that both social manipulation of pain sensitizes the whole mice responded with more pain system.” pain behaviours than mice While the empathy displayed by Mogil’s mice may tested alone. Mogil repeated hail from the same evolutionary well that causes the experiment, but blocked humans to cry during sad movies, there are limits to the mice’s view of each mouse solidarity. Mogil’s rodents only responded to other, abolishing the effect. pain in familiar mice, like a cagemate or a relative. “It appears that the They’d be unlikely to cover their eyes during the scary Jeffrey Mogil, message ’I’m in pain’ is transmitted through vision,” bits of Stuart Little—and they certainly won’t be E. P. Taylor Professor Mogil told the New York Times. “We think the mice composing “To a Man.” of Pain Studies are reading others’ facial expression, but we don’t ■ Jeffrey Mogil is the Canada Research Chair in the know for sure.” Genetics of Pain and E.P. Taylor Professor of Pain Studies. Watching a buddy suffer also seemed to prime the His research is funded by the U.S. National Institutes of pain pump. When Mogil heated a glass floor beneath Health, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and their feet, mice exposed to a distressed cagemate NeuroScience Canada. The ferric hydroxymate uptake system, developed by bacteria to survive in low iron environments. Big Step in Battling Bacteria Over-prescribing anti-bacterial drugs team, led by James Coulton, a professor in the allows their targets the opportunity to Department of Microbiology and Immunology, has adapt. Kill off a billion bacteria using mapped the first known three-dimensional structure of penicillin and a few billion more will come a protein complex involved in bacterial iron uptake. along—and brush aside previously Understanding how bacteria access nutrients essential successful weapons. to their survival, such as iron, could allow for the Antibiotic-resistant microbes are development of a new class of drugs that kill infectious becoming more dangerous every year, bacteria—by starving them. The researchers’ findings creating deadlier forms of previously were published in the June 2006 issue of Science. treatable diseases such as meningitis and pneumonia. But there is hope. McGill ■ This research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of researchers have made a fundamental Health Research, the Canada Foundation for Innovation advance that may combat the growing and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council problem of antibiotic resistance. The of Canada. 2 Headway Fall 2006 Now, Where Did I Put Those Keys? Owen Egan Age-related changes in hormone levels years who had been prescribed an estro- can have a significant impact on brain func- gen-suppressing drug, leuprolide acetate tion, a finding