All News & Events
UBC researcher among this year’s winners of NSERC’s top science and engineering awards
On Tuesday the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada handed out 18 awards in five prize categories. Diane Srivastava, who works in the zoology department at UBC, won the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship and a grant worth $250,000 for her work exploring the impact species have on their ecosystem.
Her findings will shed significant light on the delicate balance between animals and their environments, and the far-reaching impacts of extinction.
Excerpted from article by Tiffany Crawford, Vancouver Sun – June 4, 2010, p. A7
Exclusion of women from prestigious university appointments reignites battle of the sexes
By Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun -May 28, 2010, p. A1
The appointment of 19 men — and not a single woman — to prestigious research positions at Canadian universities earlier this month has re-ignited a debate about whether gender equality will ever be a reality on campus.
Although the number of female students attending universities has exceeded the number of male students for two decades, some insist the old-boys’ club continues to hold sway in advanced education’s upper echelons. Of the more than one million students attending Canadian universities, some 57 per cent are women; but, according to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, only a third of faculty are female.
The selection of 19 men from the United States, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom for the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) program is more evidence that women are overlooked for top positions, critics argue.
“That this sort of thing can still happen is an embarrassment for Canada and profoundly demoralizing for the women scientists in this country,” said Prof. Lynne Quarmby of the molecular biology and biochemistry department at Simon Fraser University.
“It’s still very much a man’s world.”
The appointments have prompted a call for a national strategy to ensure equal gender representation in top university posts.
“I don’t think that there is active discrimination,” said Mona Nemer, the University of Ottawa’s vice-president of research. But there may be “conditions that are not very suitable to the retention and progression of women at universities and we need to tackle them,” she added.
The CERC program was created in 2008, an extension of the Canada Research Chairs, to attract world-class talent to Canadian universities as part of a federal strategy to promote expertise in science and technology. From a total CERC budget of almost $200 million, the government has promised each of the 13 host universities up to $10 million over seven years to support the chairholders and their research teams.
The only B.C. appointment is Matthew Farrer, a scientist from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. He will join researchers at the University of B.C.’s faculty of medicine in studying the origins of brain diseases and identifying early-detection strategies and improved treatments for Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, the university says in a release.
“The arrival of these globally respected researchers will have multiple benefits for Canada,” Chad Gaffield, president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and chair of the tri-agency CERC steering committee, stated at the time of the announcement.
“Research chairs of this calibre working together with other researchers, students and post-doctoral fellows already in Canada will create meaningful new opportunities.”
But some aren’t so sure the money will be well spent.
In the days following the CERC announcement, questions are being asked — not only about the absence of women but also about the CERC focus on technological genius and the expenditure of millions of dollars on scientists who already had research funding in other countries.
“A focus on technology is going to find fewer women because those fields don’t have as many women,” said Prof. Bruce Brandhorst, chair of the SFU molecular biology and biochemistry department.
He said the program might have had a better gender balance if it had targeted “the very best” researchers rather than restricting applicants to four areas: environmental sciences and technologies, natural resources and energy, health and related life sciences and technologies, and information and communications technologies.
Furthermore, he suggested investing similar amounts of money in homegrown research would likely produce more benefits.
“There are a lot of highly qualified people who are very limited because of the quite restricted funding that’s been available in Canada.”
Quarmby said the CERC announcement was made while she was in Ottawa on a panel that was reviewing 47 applications for research grants. More than half deserved funding, but there was only enough money for eight, she said.
Her dismay over having to reject 39 “outstanding” applications was compounded by the CERC announcement, she said, adding that the CERC program is about superstars and ego-stroking.
“These people were doing their science elsewhere in the world. They were not at risk of that science not getting done. It doesn’t really make much difference in terms of world development if that science is done in Canada or somewhere else and yet a lot of homegrown Canadian science is being sacrificed for somebody’s ego.”
But the suggestion that women are disadvantaged on Canadian campuses has been challenged by UBC Prof. Andrew Irvine, who argues that university job searches are often biased in favour of women.
“Most departments allow men to apply, but almost always ‘give preference’ to women,” he writes in the Ottawa Citizen.
“For anyone who favours non-discriminatory hiring, even this is a shameful practice.”
Brandhorst said the state of gender equality varies among schools and disciplines. Overall, he said much has been accomplished “but in some fields there has been very little progress, and some of that is because not many women are interested in doing degree programs. If only five per cent of the PhDs are women, the number hired into faculty positions is going to be very restricted.”
SCWIST Director Linda Lanyon to attend Secrets of the Female Mind Symposium
The University of British Columbia Chapter of Women in World Neuroscience’s Symposium on Secrets of the Female Mind: Understanding Women’s Brain and Behaviour over a Lifetime
With Opening Remarks from:
The Honourable Kevin Falcon, Minister of Health Services
Speakers:
Three distinguished UBC faculty, Drs. Liisa Galea, Pam Arstikaitis and Teresa Liu-Ambrose, will share their expertise on the effects of hormones and exercise on memory and decision-making, and how advances in neuroscience can help you feel younger and age more gracefully.
Hosted by:
Dr. Gavin Stuart, FRCSC, Vice Provost Health and Dean, Faculty of Medicine
Thursday June 24th, 2010, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
Brain Research Centre, 1st Flr, UBC Hospital, Koerner Pavilion, 2211 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, BC
Refreshments provided.
To attend please RSVP by Friday June 18th, 2010 to: Laura Ralph, Faculty of Medicine, T: 604.827.3699 or E: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
OCRI Recognizes Carleton Professor as One of Ottawa’s Top Educators
Dr. Kim Hellemans, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Carleton University, was awarded a Capital Educators Award by the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI).
Dr. Hellemans, who is also a member of Carleton’s renowned Institute of Neuroscience, not only provides a stimulating learning environment in the classroom, she is also a mentor to her students, teaching assistants and young graduate students. She has won awards as a teaching assistant at the departmental, university and national level and was nominated for a 2010 TVO Best lecturer award.
Her distinguished academic career began at McGill University, where she earned a BA (Hons) in psychology. She received her Master’s and PhD from Queen’s University, where her research focused on understanding the biological basis of drug addiction. She completed post-doctoral positions at Cambridge University (2004 to 2006) and the University of British Columbia (2006 to 2008) prior to taking a position at Carleton in 2008.
Dr. Hellemans is a strong supporter of women’s issues. She has previously sat on the board of directors for the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology and is currently a board member of Amethyst, a women’s addiction treatment centre in Ottawa.
Sixteen of the region’s most innovative and respected educators were presented with Capital Educators’ Awards at the ninth annual EduGala, held at Algonquin College. Hosted by OCRI, Ottawa’s lead economic development agency, the gala event honoured talented and dedicated professionals who have demonstrated teaching excellence, acted as role models and instilled confidence and a passion for learning in their students. The awards were created in 2001 by a group of business and education leaders who wanted to raise the profile of public education and to recognize and celebrate the dedication and achievements of Ottawa’s local educators.
Nominations for the awards were open to educators employed by the four publicly-funded school boards, two colleges and four universities located within the City of Ottawa. More than 450 educators were nominated by current and former students, parents and professional colleagues. A panel of judges representing business, education and community-based organizations reviewed the 67 finalists and selected the 16 award recipients.
“I congratulate Dr. Hellemans and all of the Capital Educators’ Awards winners,” says Roseann O’Reilly Runte, president and vice-chancellor of Carleton. “Educators play a vital role in helping develop the skills, curiosity and commitment to lifelong learning necessary to help students become critical thinkers and good citizens. I am especially proud that their passion and dedication is being recognized by the community which reaches around the world.”
SCWIST President Dr. Elana Brief comments on selection of 19 male Canada Excellence Research Chairs
Canadian Universities Pick 19 Good Men
by Kelli Whitlock Burton – May 20, 2010
When the Canadian government created a $200 million pot to attract up to 20 of the world’s best researchers in four target areas, university administrators had no trouble finding 36 stars that they wanted to hire. Diversity was another matter, however as the inaugural class of Canadian Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) have two things in common: They are all illustrious scientists. And they are all men. In fact, not a single woman was even nominated.
“The fact that only men’s names were put forward indicates to me that our ideas about who can succeed in science and who we want to celebrate remain very gendered, and that it runs very deep,” says Elana Brief, president of the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology and a physicist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Joan Herbers, president of the Association for Women in Science and a population biologist at Ohio State University in Columbus, doesn’t mince words. “It’s hard to believe that there aren’t some superstar women out there that Canadian universities might be interested in recruiting,” she says. “I’m very disappointed in the outcome.”
The first group of CERC hires includes scientists from the United States, Europe, South America, and Greenland. Each will set up shop with $10 million over 7 years at one of 13 Canadian universities. The CERC program is administered jointly by Canada’s three research-granting agencies: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. All three are part of the governmental department Industry Canada (IC).
When IC Minister Tony Clement learned that all the CERC finalists were men, he assembled an ad hoc panel to investigate. It was led by Suzanne Fortier, president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and included Elizabeth Dowdeswell, president of the Council of Canadian Academies, and Indira Samarasekera, president of the University of Alberta in Canada. The panel found that “the absence of female recipients was not a result of active choices made during the formal review processes of the program,” says Lynn Meahan, IC press secretary.
The awards process had two phases, according to Michele Boutin, executive director of the CERC program. In phase 1, 41 Canadian universities submitted 135 proposals describing the research programs to be created at their institutions, but not the specific scientists they would seek to run them. Universities were allowed to submit more than one proposal. The proposals were reviewed by an international committee of 13 scientists, three of whom were women. This group pared the list to 36 proposals from 17 universities.
In phase 2, universities nominated scientists to go with each proposal. None of the 36 nominees was a women. A second committee-composed of 16 scientists and industry leaders, including three women-chose the 19 CERC winners at 13 universities.
Universities that made it to phase 2 were required to “use a fair and equitable process” to select their nominee, says Boutin. She adds that a senior university official had to attest that the nomination process was equitable.
Although the ad hoc panel cleared the process of any blame, the members did note several elements that may have put women at a disadvantage. For example, the CERC competition rewarded universities who put forth senior researchers as nominees. Because women have not been in the field as long as men, many haven’t yet reached that level of seniority, says Fortier, who led the panel.
“It’s very difficult to compare two types of candidates where both have superb accomplishments but one has 10 years seniority over the other,” Fortier says. “A university putting forward a candidate who has that lesser volume of accomplishments is to some degree taking a risk.”
Fortier suggests creating two tracks of nominees, one for senior-level faculty and another for midcareer scientists. Awards would be given in both categories. The panel also suggested that universities be required to provide documentation of their recruitment process when they submit their nominee.
Although the first class is now history, Brief and others hope the government won’t wait until the next awards cycle in 7 years to address the issue of gender equity. For example, the three agencies that administer the CERC awards could require that universities go further to ensure diversity in the hiring of personnel—including graduate students and postdoctoral fellows—in the labs of the CERC awardees, she suggests. CERC chairs could also create mentoring programs that target junior faculty women in the sciences, to encourage them to seek out such senior positions. If nothing changes, Brief says, “the world could see Canada as a backward nation that doesn’t have an appreciation for the richness of diversity.”
Science magazine
Profiles of recent UBC grads
Alia Dharamsi – Integrated Sciences program
Dharamsi will be moving on to medical school to focus on paediatrics. But her eventual goal is to secure a position with an organization like the World Health Organization or Médecins Sans Frontières.
An appetite for service
by Chris Balma
Calling Alia Dharamsi a ‘foodie’ would be a bit of an understatement.
Dharamsi, a fourth-year Integrated Sciences Program (ISP) student, has turned her passion for all things nutrition-related—the, social, cultural, physiological and developmental impact of food—into a guiding principle.
“We can’t have civil society, we can’t have children learning well in school, we can’t have families functioning together, if people don’t have food,” says Dharamsi, who graduates this month. “Food is the basis of our society—we gather together to share meals, to learn about each other. And it’s at that basic level that I want to have an impact.”
That passion has guided the Wesbrook and Premier Undergraduate Scholar throughout her studies, community service and travels. In 2007 she took on the presidency of the UBC Meal Exchange Chapter, leading the student-driven chapter of the national non-profit to raise more than $54,000 worth of food for local families—placing the UBC Chapter amongst the most successful in Meal Exchange history. The experience—along with volunteering with the Alma Mater Society Food Bank—connected her studies in nutrition and physiology to the day-to-day impact that food security and hunger has on individuals and families.
“I got involved in ISP shortly after joining Meal Exchange. I’m fascinated by the impact that food and nutrition have—not only on society—but on our ability to fight disease, to learn, and to function as living, breathing units. And the great thing about the ISP is that you build your own program, and then rationalize why.”
Dharamsi has also made food a key ingredient in her work as a mentor and tutor in Vancouver’s inner city schools. Through the UBC Learning Exchange’s Trek Program and the Let’s Talk Science program, she not only shares her expertise in science and math with high-school and junior high school students, but also makes sure she conveys the importance that nutrition plays in learning.
“Children need food and proper nutrition to think, and they need to know the importance of this directly. You can’t learn if you’re hungry and can’t be expected to participate in class if your stomach is empty.”
Most of the students Dharamsi mentors are girls, many of whom have all too common mental blocks associated with math. “It’s one of those things that I struggled with immensely early on and had to conquer. And what frustrated me was hearing girls say: ‘Oh girls aren’t supposed to be good at math.’ Math can open so many doors, though young students might not see that immediately. It’s vital to let them know, and see, that university is cool, being smart is cool, and that post-secondary education in science is entirely within their grasp.”
Dharamsi capped off her four years as a UBC undergrad with a service trip to a small village just outside La Antigua, Guatemala—an experience that tied together her passion for helping people acquire the food, water and shelter they need, along with building knowledge and capabilities. Mornings were spent painting the learning centre, updating school electrical systems, and completing cement work at local schools. Afternoons were spent teaching literacy to local students.
To someone already well versed in the impact that food scarcity and poverty have on Vancouver communities, the trip was an uneasy analog. “The parallels between the inner city and developing world are striking. Kids who don’t see their parents. Children who can’t read. Children who don’t have three meals a day. Children and families not meeting their protein or calorie requirements. It was an amazing, humbling experience.”
It’s also an experience that might have helped cement Dharamsi’s long-term plans.
Dharamsi will be moving on to medical school to focus on paediatrics. But her eventual goal is to secure a position with an organization like the World Health Organization or Médecins Sans Frontières, with an eye to help bring a clinical balance to public health policy planning.
“I live and breathe food all the time, and UBC and ISP have enabled me to combine my passions. So I can talk about the science—why our bodies actually need nutrition and the impact it has developmentally—but I can also talk about food from the social sciences perspective, from the humanities and developmental angle.”
Erin Johnston – Electrical Engineering
Johnston is a member of the first Engineering cohort to graduate from the UBC Okanagan campus. Co-op education has proven invaluable for career-planning.
Engineering a first in the Okanagan
by Jody Jacob
When Erin Johnston steps across the stage this June to accept her degree in electrical engineering, she will be part of the first graduating cohort of the School of Engineering at UBC’s Okanagan campus in Kelowna.
“It’s been a really amazing, somewhat unexpected journey,” says Johnston. “I’m really glad I chose to come through this program. The small class sizes were a huge benefit to me, and I built some really great relationships with both classmates and professors.”
A lot of changes have taken place since the School of Engineering was established in 2005, and Johnston has witnessed many of them. The Kelowna native arrived for her first year of studies with a UBC Major Entrance Scholarship of $20,000, and as a student added other awards including the Stantec Scholarship in Engineering, a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Undergraduate Research Award, Canadian Tire A.J. Billes Scholarship, and, most recently, Co-op Student of the Year.
“Definitely I would have to say that co-op education has played a big role in my development,” says Johnston. “When I came to university I wasn’t even sure what stream of engineering I was interested in. I dove in and discovered through co-op education that electrical engineering is where my passion lies.”
Johnston participated in five work terms as an engineering student. They ranged from working with an IT department at an oil mine in Fort McMurray to research-intensive work opportunities in a lab at UBC.
“To be honest, I wasn’t expecting research to be my thing,” says Johnston. “But once I became involved with it, I found I really liked it.”
Johnston had such a great experience working as an undergraduate researcher that she has decided to return this September to the Okanagan campus to pursue a master’s degree in electrical engineering. Her interest lies in digital design and micro-computers.
“The co-op opportunity was so valuable. You get the experience and really understand what you want to do,” says Johnston, who has acted as an ambassador for the co-op program over the last few years, mentoring her fellow engineering students. “The School of Engineering is able to connect students with engineering professionals in so many disciplines.”
Over the past five years, some of Johnson’s best memories come from the close-knit bonds with faculty and classmates.
In March, Johnston was part of a group of graduates who traveled to Vancouver to receive their Iron Rings.
“In Canada, when you graduate from engineering you get an Iron Ring,” said Johnston, adding that it is a tradition unique to Canada that serves as a reminder for engineers to live by a high standard of professional conduct.
“I know everyone in the graduating class, which is really nice, and it was a very memorable experience to travel down to Vancouver to get our rings—everyone was so excited. Some engineers from companies in Kelowna came down with us to do the presentation.”
Johnston hopes that after her master’s degree she can use the local connections built through the School of Engineering to find work in the Okanagan, and find a way to give back to the community her heart has always called home.
UBC Reports | Vol. 56 | No. 5 | May. 6, 2010
Student from B.C. names red seaweed after colourful movie director
Bridgette Clarkson titles new species as a tribute to Tim Burton’s ‘strange imagination’
By: Todd Coyne, Vancouver Sun, May 13, 2010, p. A5
Director Tim Burton has won many accolades during his successful career, but a B.C.-born researcher at the University of New Brunswick has honoured the filmmaker with an aptly bizarre tribute—seaweed.
Bridget Clarkston, a 29-year-old UNB doctoral student from Comox, decided to name the new species of red seaweed Euthora timburtonii as a tribute to the “similarly strange imaginations” she said she and the director share.
“I love The Nightmare Before Christmas and I love Tim Burton films because of his visual style,” said Clarkston. “His drawings are always a little bit dark, a little bit strange.”
Clarkston initially discovered the seaweed in 2007 off the coast of Bamfield, just across Vancouver Island from the beaches where she grew up. But Clarkston said that during the peer-review and verification phases since her 2007 discovery, the seaweed has also turned up in Tahsis, B.C., Friday Harbor, Wash., and even as far north as Haida Gwaii.
“There are lots of different types of red seaweeds in British Columbia—it’s very diverse compared to the rest of Canada,” said Clarkston on the phone from Fredericton. “The Pacific is much more diverse than the Atlantic … it’s an older ocean and there was a lot more time for species to evolve over there.”
Two weeks ago Clarkston sent letters to Burton, who is now judging at the Cannes Film Festival in France, by way of his agent and production company to alert them of her use of the director’s namesake. She has not yet heard anything back.
In the meantime, Clarkston already has two other new species and a whole new genus—a species classification—of red seaweed that she said she has discovered in B.C.
She has not yet submitted these species and genus for review but is confident that they are truly unique finds.
Clarkston plans to name her new genus Salishia, after Salish Sea, the alternate name proposed for the waters of the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where the new genus of seaweed species is found.
In keeping with the otherworldly, Burton-esque naming scheme, Clarkston intends to call one of these yet-to-be published species Pugetia cryptica.
The other she will name Beringia wynnei after one of Clarkston’s heroes and marine biology predecessors, American phycologist Michael Wynne.
Though still rare, according to Clarkston, new species discoveries such as these are made increasingly easy to verify thanks to initiatives like the Barcode of Life project led by researchers at the University of Guelph in Ontario.
“It’s a real Canadian-driven initiative to sequence a standard genetic marker for every species on the planet—all plants, animals, fungi, protists. It’s like a global survey of all species,” said Clarkston. “This whole species discovery aspect of my research is all part of that Barcode of Life initiative funded by Genome Canada and the University of Guelph.”
Chief Targets of Student Incivility Are Female and Young Professors
By Peter Schmidt – May 4, 2010
Denver
When it comes to being rude, disrespectful, or abusive to their professors, students appear most likely to take aim at women, the young, and the inexperienced, a new study has found.
The study, presented here on Sunday at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, involved an online survey of 339 faculty members, roughly evenly split by gender, at nine geographically dispersed colleges and universities of various institutional types. It was conducted by three researchers at the University of Redlands: Rodney K. Goodyear, a professor of education, and Pauline Reynolds and Janee Both Gragg, both assistant professors of education.
Most previous research on college professors’ experiences with incivility has focused on their mistreatment at the hands of other members of the faculty. The Redlands researchers’ study focused solely on faculty members’ experiences with incivility at the hands of students, surveying college faculty members of various ranks, from part-time instructors on up.
The study looked beyond the classroom, asking faculty members about their experiences with student incivility in the course of any class-related activities. The types of student incivility it covered included passive behavior, such as sleeping or texting in class; more actively disruptive behavior, such as coming to class late or talking on cellphones in the classroom; and behaviors that appeared directed at the instructor, such as open expressions of anger, impatience, or derision.
Only about 16 percent of the faculty members surveyed reported not having experienced student incivility at all, but that aggregate figure masked a wide gulf between men and women in terms of the likelihood of their recalling such incidents. When the researchers broke their data down by gender, they found that 24 percent of men, and just 9 percent of women, could not recall incidents of uncivil student behavior, Women were also much more likely to report that the uncivil behavior they experienced was severe, or to say that they had been upset by it.
When the researchers broke down their data in other ways, they found that the oldest and the most experienced faculty members they surveyed were the least likely to report encounters with student incivility.
Given the universal nature of some of the student behaviors examined, such as dozing off in class, it may be fair to ask whether some faculty members were just more inclined than others to have let student incivility roll off of them and not recall it or see it as worth reporting.
Other possible explanations were offered by one survey subject who said students “seemed to smell the vulnerability of the professor seeking tenure,” and another who said, “There has actually been a decrease in uncivil behavior in that I grow older and more frightening.”
The Chronicle of Higer Education
Is ‘momnesia’ a real condition or an urban myth?
Vancouver-based researchers investigate the impact of pregnancy, including the child’s sex, on memory and cognition
By Chad Skelton, Vancouver Sun – May 8, 2010, p. A23
Liisa Galea is an award-winning researcher at the University of B.C. with a PhD in neuroscience.
So it was more than a little embarrassing for her when, pregnant with her second child, she couldn’t remember where her car was parked.
She knew she’d left it in the parkade across the street from her UBC office. But, for the life of her, she couldn’t recall what level she was on.
Even worse, this didn’t happen to her just once or twice—but nearly a dozen times throughout her third trimester.
Galea is far from the first woman to forget things during pregnancy, a phenomenon so common it goes by many names: “momnesia,” “baby brain” and “dumb Mom syndrome.”
But as an expert in the field of neuroendocrinology—the link between hormones and the brain—Galea was in a unique position to figure out what was going on.
In the decade since her parking problems, Galea has undertaken a number of studies on the impact of pregnancy on the brain, mainly on rats.
She’s found that pregnant rats are worse at making their way through mazes than non-pregnant rats and that their hippocampus (an area of the brain key to memory) is smaller.
And Galea’s just one of several Vancouver-based researchers trying to figure out whether “baby brain” is a real condition or just an urban legend.
Forgetful or just distracted?
On the face of it, the notion that having a child might impact a woman’s brain function is not that surprising. There’s plenty of evidence that hormones can affect thinking. And pregnancy has a uniquely dramatic effect on hormone levels—estrogen, for example, can reach concentrations 1,000 times normal.
When surveyed by researchers, almost all pregnant women say they suffer at least some memory problems and difficulty focusing.
But studies that try to test pregnant women’s memory in the lab have been decidedly mixed: some studies find they perform worse than non-pregnant women while others have not. Carrie Cuttler, a post-doctoral fellow at UBC and a colleague of Galea’s, began to wonder whether the lab itself might be the problem.
In a not-yet-published study, Cuttler and her colleagues asked 60 pregnant women and 24 non-pregnant women to perform a series of memory tests in their lab, such as repeating back a list of words.
As expected, the pregnant women did as well as the nonpregnant women on almost all the tests.
But that wasn’t the end of the study. As the women were leaving, Cuttler gave them a short, one-page questionnaire and asked them to mail it back to her the next day.
“It was stamped, it was addressed, it was ready to go,” said Cuttler. “All they had to do was pop it in the mailbox.”
Which is exactly what 70 per cent of the non-pregnant women did.
And the pregnant women? Just over half of those in their second and third trimester remembered to mail the letter.
And only one in four of those in the first trimester mailed it back.
Cuttler says the fact so many “baby brain” studies are conducted in the lab may be masking the extent of the problem—because for a harried, pregnant woman, a lab may be the first moment’s peace they’ve had all week.
“Pregnant women can perform on these cognitive tasks with little difficulty when they’re in a sterile, distraction-free environment, where they can focus on the task at hand,” she said. “But if you put them in the real world where they’ve got … family issues [and] work issues, their attention is much more divided. They have a lot more going on. That’s when you see the deficit.”
Cuttler said her study also suggests that “baby brain” may have less to do with brain chemistry and more to do with the sheer number of things a pregnant woman has to think about, from prenatal vitamins to doctor’s appointments.
That may explain why women in the first trimester—who’ve had the least amount of time to get used to being pregnant—fared the worst in Cuttler’s study.
A nice thing about her study, said Cuttler, is that it suggests pregnant women’s mental performance in the workplace need not suffer.
“If you put a pregnant woman in a quiet, distraction-free environment she can perform as well as a non-pregnant woman,” said Cuttler. “Maybe just don’t ask her to do a hundred things at once.”
Baby’s sex a factor
How many distractions a pregnant woman has in her life may not be the only thing affecting her brain.
Whether she’s carrying a boy or a girl also seems to make a big difference.
A few years ago, Neil Watson, a psychology professor at Simon Fraser University, conducted a study that looked at how 39 pregnant women—26 carrying boys, 13 carrying girls—performed on tests of their memory from early pregnancy to several months after delivery.
The study found a surprisingly significant gap in memory performance based on the sex of the mother’s fetus: those carrying boys scored about 25 per cent better on memory tests than those carrying girls.
Watson said he’s curious what’s behind the gender gap and is conducting followup research to try to figure out what’s going on.
One of the most puzzling aspects of the original study, he said, is how persistent the gender gap was.
Boys release different hormones into their mother’s system than girls. If that’s the cause of the memory gap, said Watson, you’d expect the gap to be much wider at some stages of pregnancy than others.
Instead, his study found the gap between “boy moms” and “girl moms” persisted from the first test, at eight weeks gestation, until months after delivery.
Which raises another, far more controversial possibility, said Watson: That carrying boys doesn’t necessarily make women smarter. Rather, smart women may be more likely to have boys.
Watson stresses he has no evidence yet to support this hypothesis—and said that, as a father of three daughters, he’s not personally advocating it.
But he notes that, in other species, it’s been shown that females can sometimes bias the sex of their children when having one gender or the other is an evolutionary advantage.
Whether humans might do the same, he said, is a “fascinating possibility.”
The possible reverse effect of motherhood
Having experienced baby brain firsthand, Galea sympathizes with women who worry being pregnant is making them dumber.
And she notes the research on the topic isn’t all discouraging.
For example, take those rats who fumbled their way around Galea’s mazes during pregnancy.
When Galea tests rats later in life, after their children have left the nest, they perform better than rats who’ve never had kids.
And other studies have suggested mother rats are less susceptible to degenerative brain illnesses like Alzheimer’s than non-mother rats.
No study has yet been done looking at the long-term effects of motherhood on the human brain.
But Galea can’t help but think that, if pregnancy impairs memory and cognition, the long-term mental effort involved in being a mother might actually do the opposite.
“When you’re a mom you’ve got to remember your kids’ doctor’s appointments, their dentist’s appointment, their shots,” she said.
“Before you were just taking care of yourself. Now you’re taking care of another human being.”
Projects go ahead despite unknown risk, biologist warns
B.C. government approves independent wind, hydro power developments, then monitors for environmental problems after construction
By Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun – May 8, 2010, p. A16
The B.C. government is approving independent hydro and wind power projects without knowing their impact on the environment, including species at risk, a meeting of biologists was told Thursday.
The province is taking an adaptive-management approach, which means that projects continue to be monitored for environmental problems post-construction and mitigation measures implemented as considered necessary.
Elke Wind, a consulting biologist from Nanaimo, expressed concern about the impact of run-of-river hydro projects on threatened stream-dwelling amphibians in the absence of adequate scientific information.
“When I’m working with clients … I really try to emphasize that they treat each development project like it’s an experiment,” she told more than 250 people attending the annual conference of the Association of Professional Biologists of B.C.
“That’s the only way we can start to learn from these various development projects and figure out whether mitigation is working and what the potential impacts are.”
Charlie Palmer, an ecologist with Vancouver-based Hemmera environmental consultants, has worked on development of B.C.’s first and only commercial operating wind farm at Bear Mountain near Dawson Creek.
He acknowledged “we don’t really know an awful lot” about the impact of wind farms in B.C.
He supported adaptive management because it addresses the environmental uncertainty of such projects and prevents companies from having to spend money on mitigation measures that might not be necessary. In the case of wind farms, mitigation could include slowing down the turbine rotation or even shutting it off during times when birds or bats are particularly vulnerable.
Siting of farms to reduce conflict with wildlife is another form of mitigation done at the outset of the project, he said.
Initial results at Bear Mountain show an average of about two birds/bats die annually per turbine (there are 34 turbines), although further studies are continuing, especially over the impact on resident bats. He noted that recovering carcasses is a challenge in the wooded area around the wind farm.
B.C. has three species of amphibians that breed in mountain streams—coastal tailed frog, Rocky Mountain tailed frog and Pacific giant salamander. All are officially considered at risk and all are sensitive to changes in stream temperature and volume and structure, oxygen levels, siltation and loss of habitat.
Wind said the coastal tailed frog can live more than 20 years and takes three to four years to metamorphose, a time when tadpoles attach themselves with sucker mouths to rocks in fast-flowing streams.
Little is known about the tailed frog in the upper reaches of rivers where run-of-river hydro projects temporarily divert water to create electricity, or about how the alteration of flows and related infrastructure might harm the species as it migrates along the stream.
Since tailed frogs tend to be found in smaller river basins of 0.2 to 10 square kilometres, it’s possible that a diversion project on a larger stream might actually create habitat. “We really don’t know what’s going on in these systems,” she said.
Wind said the consultants hired by run-of-river projects may be trained, say, in fish, but often lack the skills necessary when surveying for frogs during the environmental assessment process. Sampling can also be difficult at deeper water levels and some high-elevation habitats are simply inaccessible to biologists to conduct surveys.
“I have a lot of concern … about the knowledge and skill level of the people out there actually collecting the data. I’ve had instances where I’ve gone in and I’m finding tailed frogs in streams where the biologists for the companies haven’t found them.”
Run-of-river projects also raise concerns over loss or fragmentation of habitat, nonnative species introduction, poaching due to increased access to wilderness areas, water quality and quantity.
“The main concern with a lot of the public is the cumulative impacts of all these potential run-of-river projects and disturbance to pristine watersheds,” Wind said.
The conference heard that the province’s environmental assessment process (which ultimately reports to two cabinet ministers for the final decision) has only ever rejected one development application—expansion of Kemess mine in northern B.C. in 2007—although in some cases proponents back out voluntarily for a variety of reasons, including an inability to meet environmental standards.
Canada Foundation for Innovation funding fuels new labs
More than one million dollars has been allocated to four research teams making breakthroughs related to stroke and Alzheimer’s, cancer and infertility, stem cells and industrial robotics at The University of Western Ontario.
The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) provided the grants, totalling $1,066,058, through its Leaders Opportunity Fund.
Among the four principal investigators receiving funding are Cheryle Séguin and Bonnie Deroo.
A long-term objective for Cheryle Séguin at Schulich’s department of Physiology & Pharmacology is to generate clinically relevant organ-specific stem cells. She received $194,513 to establish a cutting-edge mammalian stem cell laboratory that will enable her to study the mechanisms that control stem cell fate, and to generate novel and therapeutically relevant organ-specific stem cells through genetic manipulation and three-dimensional tissue engineering.
The unifying goal of Bonnie Deroo’s research is to determine the molecular mechanisms driven by Estrogen Receptor in the ovary. Ultimately, these studies will lead to an increased understanding of the causes of infertility in women. Her co-investigator, Trevor Shepherd, is developing novel research models of ovarian cancer to test the molecular mechanisms underlying the origin and progression of this disease. Deroo is a Lawson Health Research Institute Scientist and Biochemistry professor at Western, while Shepherd is a Translational Oncology Scientist at the London Regional Cancer Program and Obstetrics & Gynaecology professor at Western. Their combined research received $300,723.
Study suggests link between abortion, mental health disorders
Patients showing signs of mood disorders, drug abuse should be screened
By Jen Skerritt, Vancouver Sun, May 1, 2010, p. B5
Depression and substance abuse plague about half of American women who reported having an abortion, according to a University of Manitoba study.
The study, published in the Canadian Journal of Psychology, suggests there’s an association between mental disorders and abortion and that doctors should screen for a history of abortion in women who present symptoms of anxiety, mood disorders and substance abuse.
However, researchers are adamant the findings do not conclude abortion causes mental disorders or drug abuse, saying the study did not examine other factors—including whether the mental disorder existed before a woman had an abortion.
The study analysed data collected from 3,310 women by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Drug Abuse in the U.S. between 2001 and 2003.
Layperson interviewers asked women if they ever had an abortion in their lifetime, and used guidelines from the World Health Organization to assess such mental conditions as major depression, suicide, alcohol abuse and panic attacks.
Researchers found drug and alcohol abuse was more prevalent among women who reported having an abortion sometime in their life. About 25 per cent of women who had an abortion reported some form of substance abuse in their lifetime, compared to seven per cent of women who did not have abortions.
The study also found women who had an abortion had an increased likelihood of mood and anxiety disorders, although the relation is weaker and less consistent. Researchers speculate other factors, such as violence and poor social supports, may contribute to mental disorders.
Natalie Mota, a U of M graduate student who was the study’s primary author, said the findings are unclear.
“You absolutely cannot say from this data that an abortion causes mental illness. There’s an association present, but whether the mental illness comes before or after needs to be further examined.”
The study did not examine what portion of the abortions were medically necessary or elective, and said “unintended pregnancy itself may be a stressful event that can be a confounding factor in the relation between abortion and mental illness.”
Mota speculates the connection between substance abuse and abortion was strong because it’s possible that women self-medicate with drugs and alcohol following an abortion, although the study did not investigate this.
Mota said it’s important the study is not misinterpreted, and that people understand researchers found an “association” between mental disorders and abortions, not a “cause and effect” relationship.
“There is a possibility the person was diagnosed with a mental disorder and 20 years passed and they had an abortion,” Mota said.
Abortion providers worry the study’s findings could be misinterpreted and become fodder for anti-abortion groups.
“I think there are lots and lots of questions about this study and I would like to see some answers to those before I know it has any affect as an abortion provider and the way I provide my service,” said Joan Dawkins, executive director of the Women’s Health Clinic in Winnipeg.
