View more recently featured neuroscience news stories. You can also submit a press release or a recently published paper to CAN for consideration.
August 23 - 25, 2021 | Virtual meeting
Recording available: CSPC panel 128 – Roles & Responsibilities of Academic Science Societies in informing Policy: Lessons & Observations from Around the World
The recording of the CSPC panel from November 17 2020 is now available from the CSPC. Learn more on their website: https://sciencepolicy.ca/conference/cspc-2020/improving-linkages-between-science-policy/
CAN President Charles Bourque’s intervention begins at 1:08. (more…)
CAN Connection Spring 2021
Read our latest newsletter: https://can-acn.org/can-connection-spring-2021
Shedding light on adult brain stem cells
A CERVO research centre team demonstrates the role of light and calcium ions in neural stem cell activation in adulthood
It has long been believed that neurons in the human brain develop only during the period from embryogenesis to adolescence. It is now known that in some areas of the brain, neural stem cells remain and give rise to neurons even in adults. “These stem cells can remain quiescent for long periods of time and we still know very little about the mechanisms that make them go from a quiescent state to an activated state,” says Armen Saghatelyan, from the Université Laval and the CERVO Brain Research Centre. (more…)
Researchers close in on root of slow motor learning in autism
Image source uottawa.ca
Social deficits attract so much attention in the study of autism spectrum disorder, it’s easy to forget there are motor learning deficits during early childhood as well. For autistic kids hoping to throw a ball around the schoolyard and connect with classmates, these physical skill differences can isolate a child further.
In a new study published in Nature Neuroscience researchers from the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine have closed in on the neurological underpinnings of the motor learning delay. Dr. Simon Chen’s lab in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine used a mouse model of autism to demonstrate a shortage in the amount of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline being released into the brain’s primary motor cortex.
Dr. Chen’s lab identified the problem originating some distance away in an area of the hindbrain called the locus coeruleus, which is known as a center of motivation, alertness, and attention.
Read the rest of the press release on the University of Ottawa website:
https://media.uottawa.ca/news/researchers-close-root-slow-motor-learning-autism
Original research article:
Yin, X., Jones, N., Yang, J. et al. Delayed motor learning in a 16p11.2 deletion mouse model of autism is rescued by locus coeruleus activation. Nat Neurosci (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-021-00815-7
CAN Trainee research feature: Ewen Lavoie – University of Alberta
Ewen Lavoie presents work he has done in the laboratory of Dr. Craig Chapman at the University of Alberta, and published here:
Lavoie, E., & Chapman, C. S. (2021). What’s limbs got to do with it? Real-world movement correlates with feelings of ownership over virtual arms during object interactions in virtual reality. Neuroscience of Consciousness.
