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At the Base of the Lightening Rod
Uncovering the mysteries of female sexuality puts Queen’s researcher on the fast track to scientific star status
By Janice Kennedy, Canwest News Service March 7, 2009
Searching online recently for a used piano, Meredith Chivers found what looked like a good prospect, e-mailed the seller and was taken aback by his response. Meredith Chivers? he asked. That Meredith Chivers?
The man had seen the Jan. 25 cover story of The New York Times Magazine. Titled “What Do Women Want?” it featured extensive coverage of the groundbreaking work being done by sex researcher Meredith Chivers, a scientist who is carving out an international reputation as an expert in the field of female sexuality. And yes. The piano buyer was that Meredith Chivers.
Chivers, an assistant professor in the department of psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., laughs as she recounts the tales of people’s reactions to her line of work. Travelling by plane to international conferences on sexuality, she used to share that information in conversations with curious seatmates.
“But it was like opening a Pandora’s box. Now I just tell people I study cognitive science. They go, ‘Ooh, sounds really interesting,’ and that’s the end of it.”
It wouldn’t be, if they knew who she really was. The fact is Chivers, 36, is on the fast track to international star status—at least, from a scientific perspective—in female sexuality studies, a fairly uncrowded field despite Freud’s famously articulated bafflement more than 80 years ago.
What do women want? Chivers and a small group of other female researchers around the world are finally reconsidering the question, suggesting possible answers. Their work is attracting attention, and sometimes controversy, wherever it appears, and Chivers has become one of the field’s go-to experts.
“It’s been weird,” says Chivers. “To have this kind of recognition so young is odd, I think.”
Research into female sexuality, she says, “is a lightning rod. It attracts all kinds of attention from all kinds of different spheres. And I’ve been getting results that are completely counterintuitive.”
Small wonder she finds herself at the base of the lightning rod. The Ottawa native, who is attractive and personable and nothing at all like the “science geek” she often calls herself, is newly installed at Queen’s, where in April she will assume the prestigious position of Queen’s National Scholar.
Her resume features master’s and doctoral degrees from Chicago’s Northwestern University, research and clinical experience in Chicago and at Toronto’s renowned Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and an eye-popping array of academic honours and awards. She sits on the editorial boards of three respected journals, including Archives of Sexual Behavior, the world’s leading publication in the field. And her impressive body of published papers stretches back to 1996, just a year after her graduation (with a bachelor of science degree in honours psychology) from the University of Guelph. Chivers has also spoken and delivered papers across Canada and the United States, in Europe, and as far afield as Egypt.
Even without reference to the content of her work, she is undeniably hot stuff. And the fallout from January’s New York Times Magazine feature has only turned up the heat. “It was overwhelming,” she says. “I had more than 200 e-mails in response to the article.”
Many were from women who wanted to express gratitude to Chivers for her work, which they felt validated their experiences. But many were also from documentary filmmakers, literary agents and publishers, though she is putting them off for the time being.
Married to psychologist Michael Seto (a professor, pedophilia expert and forensic consultant at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group’s Brockville site), she has a young son at home, 18-month-old Oliver.
“Any extra time I have I want to spend with him. I don’t want to spend it writing books. But I will. I have a couple I want to write.”
Chivers conducts her experiments—testing volunteer subjects’ degrees of arousal to visual and auditory sexual stimuli—in a small, dimly lit room that locks from the inside. If the test subjects are women (she has also studied male sexuality), they are asked to undress from the waist down and insert a wired measuring device resembling a tampon. Then they relax on a reclining chair to watch movies or images on a monitor in front of them.
“People kind of get this Stanley Kubrick idea from A Clockwork Orange,” Chivers says, “but it’s not like that at all.”
The arousal measuring machine is called a plethysmograph, relatively recently adapted for women, though a male version—employing a device like a rubber band—has been around for decades.
Chivers’s subjects record their own conscious reactions by means of a lever or keypad, and the devices record physiological reactions by measuring the increase in genital blood flow (or, for men, the girth of the penis).
Thanks to the volunteer subjects she has tested over the past decade, and the data she has pored over scrupulously, she has come up with some interesting hypotheses.
In Chicago, she worked with Northwestern University professor Michael Bailey, former chairman of the psychology department, looking, among other things, at the question of bisexuality and co-authoring a paper on arousal patterns in bisexual men. The findings sparked controversy, since they were presented in media reports to suggest that bisexual men were really homosexual. (Proclaimed the 2005 New York Times headline, “Straight, Gay or Lying.”)
Chivers, who has grown wary of the media, says the reports were reductionistic and sensationalist. Sexual orientation, she says, is a complex motivational force that consists of far more than a collection of arousal responses. But she does think there is far more true bisexuality among women, where “there’s a lot more blurring of the lines.” In fact, Chivers believes that exclusively lesbian women may be fairly rare, and that many lesbians still find themselves attracted to men as well as women.
Such observations are what have been grabbing the spotlight for her.
Bailey, who was Chivers’s mentor during her graduate and postgraduate studies, calls her “a bold thinker—not constrained by what others thought.”
For instance, she believes that, contrary to cultural stereotype, women generally are aroused by any portrayal of sexual activity—heterosexual, homosexual, even non-human (she has shown images of mating apes)—no matter what their orientation, even though they don’t always admit to it. Men, on the other hand, tend to be aroused by images that address their specific orientation.
But she refines that further. While previous research had suggested there were no differences in arousal patterns between lesbian and heterosexual women, Chivers discovered that there were. When sexual activity involving couples was portrayed, arousal patterns were similar. But when solitary sexual activity was shown—individuals masturbating, for instance—lesbian women responded more to images of individual women than to the images of individual men.
From this, Chivers draws the preliminary conclusion that, as the level of portrayed sexual activity increases, it trumps personal orientation. Furthermore, it might suggest that lesbian women, to some degree, have a response pattern more typical of men, whose arousal patterns reflect their orientation.
“My hope in doing this work,” she says, “is that I can educate women about their sexuality, and that I can figure out some of the tougher questions.”
She has various lines of research she’s pursuing at the moment. Among them are studies analyzing the conscious and unconscious disconnect she’s observed in women’s arousal responses, sexuality in postpartum women and in cancer survivors, and a question so immense it might intimidate less scientific minds.
She wants to understand nothing less than “what it is that makes people sexual.”
“I never felt uncomfortable talking about sex,” Chivers cheerfully admits. She recalls the favour she did for male classmates at her Catholic high school in Trenton, Ont., where her military father was posted. The guys were desperate for information, so she drew them diagrams of the female anatomy, specifically the location of the clitoris.
In a Catholic school? “Yeah,” she laughs. “But it’s even worse. It was during religion class.”
During an undergraduate course in human sexuality at the University of Guelph, she had to conduct an hour-long seminar on female sexual problems.
“I’ve never been a really comfortable public speaker, but I felt really good about what I was doing.
“Afterward, I remember thinking, ‘If I could do this for the rest of my life, I’d be a pretty happy person’.”
SCWIST President Dr. Elana Brief featured in JADE newsletter
SCWIST President Dr. Elana Brief’s article Dancing Equations in Uppsala is featured in the February 2009 JADE Newsletter. You can read the article here.
SCWIST gratefully acknowledges it has been the recipient of JADE Project funding over the past 3 years. To learn more about the JADE Project, visit http://www.jadeproject.ca.
Tools for Transition Workshop - April 18, 2009
A full-day workshop for grad students and post-docs led by our experienced facilitator Sally Halliday, on how to navigate the many transitions experienced as a woman in science.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Registration: 8:30
Workshop 9:00-4:00
YWCA – Weldwood Room (4th floor)
535 Hornby St.
Vancouver
Come at 8:30 am to sign in. Please bring your own lunch or money to buy lunch during the lunch break. Snacks will be available during the day.
Advanced registration only. Seating is limited. Please click here to register.
Funding generously provided by the JADE Project
Sally Halliday, M.A. RCC (Counselling Psychology) is principal of Sally Halliday Counselling and Consulting Services. In addition to counselling individuals and couples in her private practice and Employee Assistance work, Sally develops and teaches courses at UBC Life and Career Centre. Sally combines her academic research on transitions with her practical experience as a teacher, counsellor and former journalist to help others who are making decisions during times of change. Sally teaches skiing in her spare time.
Immigrating Women in Science Networking Night - April 16, 2009
Please join IWIS for its first event of 2009 – an informal networking potluck evening.
Come to network and hear successful career stories of immigrant women panelists who will share with us how they did it, what worked for them and what were the opportunities/challenges when they entered the work force in SETT.
Thursday April 16
6:00
Michael Smith Lab @ UBC
Room 101
2185 East Mall
Vancouver, BC
V6T 1Z4
Speakers include:
Taraneh Sowlati, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Assistant Professor Department of Wood Science – UBC
Nancy Liao
Assistant Bioinformatics Coordinator, Genome Sciences Centre
Gulnur Birol, B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D
Research Associate – Skylight and the UBC Biology Program
Gordana Pejic
Embedded Electrical Engineer – OCE Display Graphics Systems
There is no charge for the event but all participants are asked to bring a food item to share. Please indicate in the “comments” section of the registration poll what you will be bringing (salad, entree, dessert etc). Please RSVP by April 15th.
Dr. Rabab Ward - Life, Career, & Family: Challenges & Opportunities - March 26, 2009
Along with Women in Engineering (Vancouver Region) SCWIST is please to present SCWIST member Dr. Rabab Ward give the following talk:
Life, Career, & Family: Challenges & Opportunities
Dr. Ward is a professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UBC, as well as engineer and mother. She has been honoured with various awards, among those, the 2008 Woman of Distinction award from the YWCA.
Date: Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Time: 6:30-9:30pm, presentation at 7pm
Place: Scotia Bank Tower, Boardroom 34th floor, Downtown Vancouver (650 West Georgia Street)
Cost: $8
You MUST register in order to attend since we need to give the registrants list to the security guard to let you up the elevator.
Sandwiches, snacks, and hot and cold beverages will be provided.
To register please click here. For more information visit http://www.wievr.ca, or email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Johanna Schuetz receives 2008 Lionel E. McLeod Health Research Scholarship
The Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) has awarded a 2008 Lionel E. McLeod Health Research Scholarship to Johanna Schuetz. The award honours Dr. Lionel McLeod, the founding president of AHFMR.
Ms. Schuetz is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Medical Genetics, Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. She has received numerous awards and scholarships during her academic career., from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and the University of British Columbia. Ms. Schuetz’s research focuses on the genetics of susceptibility to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer with the fifth highest incidence in Canada. More knowledge in this area could help better predict and treat this deadly cancer.
The Lionel E. McLeod Health Research Scholarship is given annually to an outstanding student at the University of Alberta, University of Calgary, or University of British Columbia for research related to human health. Congratulations Johanna!
Post-doc opportunities at Centre for Drug Research and Development
The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD; http://www.cdrd.ca) is a non-profit organization designed to accelerate the commercialization of promising life science discoveries from British Columbia’s universities and academic research institutions. CDRD currently has a number of exciting Post-Doc positions in the health sciences designed to provide critical experience and training related to the commercialization of drug discovery. CDRD offers the unique opportunity to post-doc’s in that it provides an environment in which they can learn to operate at industry standards while at the same time still providing the opportunity to interface with Academic Investigators. CDRD currently has a total of 5 Post-Docs working in the divisions of Target Identification, Screening, Drug Evaluation and Design & Synthesis.
Canada’s Best Diversity Employers 2009
Launched in 2008, Canada’s Best Diversity Employers is a competition that recognizes employers that have exceptional workplace diversity and inclusiveness programs. Congratulations to all winners including:
Canadian Pacific Railway – Calgary, AB
Created an engineering services women’s forum to develop outreach and recruitment initiatives for women jobseekers
Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co. – Mississauga, ON
Have recognized the importance of diversity and inclusiveness inteh workplace for more than 20 years – employee groups for visible minorities and women were established in the 1980s
Intuit Canada Limited – Edmonton, AB
Operates a women’s network to provide peer mentoring, skills development and feedback opportunities to women employees
Telus Corporation – Vancouver, BC
Manages a netwroking group for women employees to provide leadership and career development opprtunities, netowrking events and a monthly newsletter for women employees
Breaking new ground
Women thriving in diverse working environments
By Ann Gibbon, Special to the Vancouver Sun February 21, 2009
Maureen Daschuk vividly remembers the rainy spring day in Vancouver when, as director of Telus’s construction team for B.C. and Alberta, she received a call that a cable line had been accidentally severed in the city.
A nearby hospital and some businesses were affected. As the head of the team that builds the telecommunications company’s infrastructure, she had to inspect and work on the situation at once.
There was just one problem, she recalls. She had just flown in from a business meeting in Edmonton, dressed in skirt and high heels. She had no steel-toed boots, hard hat or other field gear with her. Not that she let it stop her: she simply stomped through the mud to inspect the cable—in her heels.
Her field staff, all men, thought it a sight to behold. “They were laughing and joking in a good-spirited way,” she says. “They were saying, ‘I never expected I’d live long enough to see the day my boss would show up in high heels.’”
While she had to discard the muddied shoes, Daschuk, 46, has retained the incident as a reminder of how times have changed at Telus. She heads a 175-member team that has been traditionally male-dominated. “So I’m breaking new ground,” she says.
Today, 40 per cent of Telus’s staff is female and 25 per cent of its most senior executive positions are held by women. The company has been selected as one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers in 2009 in rankings by Mediacorp.
With programs such as networking, mentoring, telecommuting, topped-up maternity benefits and a lump sum of $500 for employees to spend to achieve more work-life balance, Telus has created an environment that helps women advance and work in different areas of the company, says Daschuk, who moved to her current position from a financial position at Telus.
At Canadian Pacific Railway, Cathy Moher, yard manager in Sudbury, Ont., has found similar opportunities. “There is no end to the possibilities you can achieve with CP,” says the mother of two. With a father who was a CP railway conductor, and a grandfather who was a dispatcher/telegrapher—he’d relay messages to train crews telling them where to clear opposing trains—“I knew the railway.” What she didn’t know two decades ago was the range of opportunities she would experience with the company.
She began as an operator—a liaison between rail-traffic controllers/dispatchers and conductors and engineers, ensuring train documents were delivered—in Schreiber, Ont., in 1989. She has been in her current job for almost three years overseeing six managers, 38 train-crew employees and 15 mechanical employees. Prior to that, the 45-year-old worked in various jobs, including six years as a terminal co-ordinator in Saratoga, New York, overseeing mostly male workers older than herself. She was initially viewed with suspicion, but over time her staff got used to the idea of a female boss.
Now at CP, cited for 2009 as one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers, 10 per cent of the 16,000-strong workforce (including its U.S. operations) is female. Of the 1,200 women working at CP in Canada, 200 are in field operations. And in the executive ranks, 50 per cent are women, far ahead of the national average.
CP offers $1,000 scholarships (totalling $10,000 a year) to women pursuing a career as a railway conductor at partner colleges.
In 2007, some CP women employees launched a networking program called Women on Track. The program facilitates mentoring, communication, learning and connecting with women across the railway’s network, along with and charitable community work.
Research has demonstrated a strong business case for gender diversity and for programs that permit women to get ahead—particularly in leadership positions. Catalyst, a U.S.-based organization that researches women’s advancement in the workplace, has done numerous studies that point to a strong correlation between gender diversity at an organization and its financial performance.
A 2004 Catalyst study of Fortune 500 companies found those with the highest representation of women in top management positions performed better financially than those with the lowest women’s representation. Return on equity (ROE), was 35 per cent higher and total return to shareholders (defined as capital gains plus dividends) was one third higher.
Deborah Gillis, who leads the Canadian office of Catalyst, says when organizations promote a diverse working environment, “the research shows employees report stronger career satisfaction. They believe they have a stronger chance to advance and feel they can fully contribute.” That means better staff retention and more productivity and profitability within an organization, which is particularly important in these times of economic hardship, she says.
Constable Judith Russell, of the Toronto Police Service, which ranks among Mediacorp’s Best Diversity Employers, says the TPS has plenty of programs to encourage diversity in the workplace. But it’s an ongoing challenge, she admits. “As women, we face the expectation all the time that you’re expected to keep up with men, and sometimes if they feel you can’t, you may feel a bit isolated.”
Russell, 35, who works in the Employment Unit Recruiting Section (having moved over from front-line policing) would always like to see more women in the service, but says strides have been made. One of four deputy police chiefs is female, and that position ranks second only to the chief of police.
In 2006, almost half of new hires by the service were identified as members of “diversity” groups, including women.
It’s just common sense to have women in the workplace, whether out in the field, on the front lines, or, significantly, in decision-making positions, says Gillis. Women represent half the Canadian labour force and control 80 cents of every consumer dollar. So why not give them that kind of say in the workplace?
“If you want to serve the market,” she says, “you want to hire the market.”
Steep decline in health for women in 40s: study
Women’s health experts say challenges of balancing work and life are taking a dramatic toll
By Tiffany Crawford, Canwest News Service February 19, 2009
Canadian women experience a significant decline in health and quality of life between the ages of 40 and 50, compared to men of the same age, a Statistics Canada study suggests.
The study, released Wednesday, suggests women in their 40s experience more health problems—for example, illness linked to emotional stress—that lead to a poorer quality of life than their male counterparts during that particular decade, says one of the study’s authors, Heather Orpana.
The findings are no surprise to women’s health experts, who say many in this age group are worn out emotionally and physically from so-called “time-hunger” issues—trying to juggle careers, family and other caregiving responsibilities.
“They’re absorbing all of this in a very different way than from generations ago,” said Madeline Boscoe, executive director of the Canadian Women’s Health Network. “So much so that if you were to ask them questions about the quality of their life they would say they had lots of anxiety of some kind or another.”
According to the report’s data, from ages 40 to 50, women’s average health-related quality of life index fell by the equivalent of six percentage points, which is twice the threshold considered clinically important. The data for men in their 40s, on the other hand, did not drop significantly and instead the numbers stabilized, indicating a period of relative good health for men, but not for women.
“The numbers look like a really small decrease, but in actual fact it’s quite large in terms of the impact on one’s daily living,” said Orpana.
“It’s going from a state where you have pain or vision problems, for example, but you can still function to going to a state where you have pain or a vision problem that you can’t corr-
ect.”
Scott Schieman, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto, says men in their 40s may perceive they have a better quality of life because they are confident in their careers and have more senior positions.
“Men in that age group are hitting their stride in their work careers,” he said. “They are also more likely [than women] to get the resources and rewards from the work role and that could be bolstering their sense of well-being.”
While women and men may have equally demanding jobs, men may not have the same stress of child rearing, he said, adding that men may be less anxious about their jobs.
“There’s more sharing of responsibilities going on, but if the burden of child care is falling more on women and they are trying to work at the same time that’s probably taking a major toll as well.”
Another reason why men might see their health-related quality of life as good is because they tend to ignore their health more than women, suggests Dr. Tom Freeman, chair of family medicine at the University of Western Ontario.
“Our socialization is different that way. Women are worrying about birth control and pap smears and regularly visit physicians, but it isn’t until around age 50 that men take any action,” he said.
“There is lots of speculation about why they don’t live as long as women and you know you wonder if they paid more attention to their health they would perhaps live longer?”
The study measured eight attributes: vision, hearing, speech, ambulation, dexterity, emotion, cognition, and pain and discomfort.
Participants were asked to grade each attribute ranging from severely impaired to no impairment.
Orpana said one of the reasons for this drop among women could be attributed to the emotional domain.
For example, of the women studied, those who said they went from being “somewhat happy” in their 30s to “somewhat unhappy” in their 40s would experience that decline in quality of life.
The reasons could be linked to emotional stress including relationship problems, problems with children, job stress or financial problems, said Orpana.
“We know that women are more likely to experience depression than men,” she said. “So that really implies that we need to look further at women in that decade to see why their health quality of life is decreasing so much.”
Band of Sisters - Breast Cancer Patients Test Role of Exercise
When Sue Grayston began chemotherapy last year, a brisk morning workout with musician Bif Naked wasn’t exactly what she was anticipating.
Grayston, a professor in the Faculty of Forestry and Canada Research Chair in Soil Microbial Ecology, found a breast lump in April 2008. She was diagnosed with cancer in May, underwent surgery in June, and began treatment shortly after.
Through a tip from her oncologist, she ended up at CARE (Combined Aerobics and Resistance Exercise), a research trial in UBC’s School of Human Kinetics that studies the role exercise plays in the lives of breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
Grayston says the trial has had an unintended side effect: establishing a close-knit, emotional bond among patients, including the aforementioned Canadian rocker, that continues long after involvement with the study ends.
Women participating in CARE take part in one of three exercise programs over the course of four to six months: aerobics, high-intensity aerobics, or aerobics combined with strength-training.
Like other participants in the trial, Grayston’s progress at the small gym near Vancouver General Hospital was carefully monitored and recorded by a team of volunteers and UBC graduate students, led by research technician Diana Jespersen.
However, Grayston quickly found the program offered more than just data for CARE’s study.
“One thing they can’t measure at the moment is the support we get from the other women,” she says.
While the research will be published in oncology journals, and may lead to methods that could alter treatment for breast cancer, Grayston says it was the bond forged among the participants that helped her get through chemotherapy.
The trial has allowed her to connect with other women undergoing the same treatment, sharing tips on drugs and doctor’s visits—not to mention the best places in town to buy wigs (chemotherapy patients typically lose most of their hair).
“It’s just made it actually bearable. I don’t know how people could do this without support,” she says.
Led by Dr. Don McKenzie, director of Sports Medicine at UBC and Dr. Karen Gelman of the B.C. Cancer Agency, the trial is a joint venture between UBC, the University of Alberta and the University of Ottawa.
McKenzie is known worldwide for launching the Abreast in a Boat dragon boat racing program, following his study that debunked a long-held belief that upper-body exercise in women treated for breast cancer encouraged lymphedema, an irreversible swelling in the arm and chest.
He says the current research trial could mark a turning point for women undergoing breast cancer treatment.
“After 25 years, we’re starting to appreciate that exercise is as useful in intervention and health care as a lot of the other things we can do.”However, he concedes it can be difficult for a woman undergoing chemotherapy to find the motivation to begin exercising.
“Chemotherapy takes the wind out of your sails,” he says at the project’s small gym. Side effects vary greatly, but patients can experience anemia, nausea, fatigue and depression. It’s hardly the stuff that would prompt a visit to the treadmill.
If it weren’t for CARE, Bif Naked, the study’s first and most high-profile patient, says she would have had difficulty getting out of bed every day.
The Canadian rocker, known offstage as Beth Torbert, announced her breast cancer in a January 2008 interview with the CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos.
“When I was diagnosed with breast cancer it came as a big surprise to me,” she says. “And had this not been in place for me, I wouldn’t have done anything. I would have probably just stayed in bed the whole time.”
Seventeen women have finished the program at UBC, and another 25 are currently involved. In all, 300 women will take part at the three universities.
For graduates of the UBC trial, their three-day-a-week exercise regimen has evolved into a weekly morning walking group, though Torbert jokes that she and her friends see it more as a gang.
“It’s really fascinating, psychologically and emotionally, how integral this group of people became to each other in very unusual circumstances,” she says. “It’s not that we cried together; we laughed together”.
“It’s probably somewhat unheard of for anyone to have a grand old time during breast cancer treatment, especially during chemotherapy, but I assure you, we have a riot.”
Priming the Brain to Recover from Stroke
For the 300,000 Canadians living with the aftermath of a stroke, partial paralysis and loss of independence is a daily reality.
Now a UBC brain stimulation technique that primes the brain to relearn and retain old movements is showing encouraging results for faster and more effective recovery. A wand, connected to a computer, is placed adjacent to persons head and a stimulus is applied.
“Currently, there are no drugs to help stroke patients regain mobility,” says Lara Boyd, UBC assistant professor of Physical Therapy in UBC’s Faculty of Medicine. “Thus far, physical therapy has proven to be an effective treatment for stroke patients to regain mobility. However, one of the biggest challenges is the time and amount of practice it takes for the brain to relearn an old movement.”
The two-part study tests a healthy brain first to ensure the technique is safe and that there are no adverse effects and then applies the same technique to a stroke-affected brain. The study is currently in the second phase.
Following a stroke, the affected part of the brain is no longer active because of the loss of blood flow, which causes brain cell death. The area of the brain affected by the injury determines the patient’s inability to move, see, remember, speak, reason and read and/or write.
“One of the reasons that it is so difficult for the brain to recover from a stroke and reorganize itself is that the side of the brain that is damaged becomes suppressed while the undamaged side becomes hyperactive,” says Boyd, who is a Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology of Motor Learning. “The left and right side of the brain become unbalanced. It becomes more difficult for the affected side of the body to move because the damaged side of the brain is suppressed. Conversely, the unaffected side of the body moves much easier because the undamaged side of the brain becomes hyperactive.”
This negative feedback loop helps explain why it becomes increasingly difficult for stroke patients to regain mobility.
“Fortunately, the brain is an amazingly dynamic organ that can reorganize itself,” says Boyd, whose current study looks at the benefits of applying an electromagnetic stimulus to the stroke affected section of the brain. “What we want to do is to stimulate and enhance brain cell reorganization around the damaged part of the brain.”
In doing so, Boyd believes that the brain can reorganize itself and find an alternate pathway to performing a previous movement.
The first part of the study tested individuals who had never suffered a stroke. The participants received an electromagnetic stimulus and were then asked to practice a specific movement. Participants who received the stimulus demonstrated increased and improved learning for 15 – 20 minutes following the stimulus.
“Preliminary results of our research on non-stroke patients show that if you pre-excite the brain by applying an electromagnetic stimulus, motor learning and retention of skill is improved and retained,” says Boyd. “We are currently applying this technique to the stroke affected brain and the available data is positive. We are quite optimistic that this approach will work and we expect results in the coming months.”
According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, each year, there are between 40,000 to 50,000 strokes in Canada and close to 16,000 Canadians die.
Wed Feb 01
