Western University-developed technique gives new insight on brain disorders
A new technique that flattens the wrinkles and folds in the brain's hippocampus for a 2D view could make it easier to understand brain disorders.
The hippocampus is a region of the brain often looked at for clues to understand disease progression and response to treatment for brain disorders.
“There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in the hippocampus, it’s a real hotbed. So, there are many diseases associated with it, that start to show abnormalities there before most of the rest of the brain,” says former PhD student at Western University, Jordan DeKraker.
Some of those diseases include Alzheimer’s disease, major depressive disorder and epilepsy.
What the new technique does is use images from an MRI to digitally create a model of the hippocampus. Why that is important is because the tissue folds like a sheet, making it difficult to diagnose changes according to DeKraker.
“We’re basically doing is using a bunch of computational tools to try and unfold that structure so we can get a look at all different parts of that tissue.”
Assistant Professor at Western, Ali Khan, was one of the people overseeing DeKraker’s work
“By flattening it out, it makes it look very similar across people, so now you can find corresponding points in one person and another, so that gives us a way to compare.”
This is the culmination of DeKraker’s PhD work at Western. It has been published in the journal Trends in Neurosciences, and DeKraker believes this will open up a new level of understanding of certain brain disorders.
“We’d like to try and better diagnose and understand, perhaps, different sub-types of the disease so we can choose a treatment that’s most likely to work for that person.”
And more research and development will branch off from DeKraker’s work.
“We’re developing a web-based app that can be used to automatically perform this unfolding and to provide machine learning or artificial intelligence-based methods for quantifying how the hippocampus is actually affected in different individuals,” explains Khan.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Canadian gov't proposes new foreign influence registry as part of wide-spanning new bill
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is proposing a suite of new measures and law changes aimed at countering foreign interference in Canada, amid extensive scrutiny over past meddling attempts and an ever-evolving threat landscape.
Boeing Starliner capsule's first crewed test flight postponed
The long-awaited first crewed test flight of Boeing's new Starliner space capsule was called off for at least 24 hours over a technical issue that launch teams were unable to resolve in time for the planned Monday night lift-off.
Teacher charged in historical sexual assault of Calgary teenage girl
Calgary police have charged a teacher with the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl more than 20 years ago.
Winnipeg man admits to killing four women, argues he's not criminally responsible
Defence lawyers of Jeremy Skibicki have admitted in court the accused killed four Indigenous women, but argues he is not criminally responsible for the deaths by way of mental disorder – this latest development has triggered a judge-alone trial rather than a jury trial.
Man banned from owning animals after fatal Calgary dog attack
The owner of three Calgary dogs that got loose and mauled a woman to death in 2022 has been ordered to pay a $15,000 fine within one year and banned from owning any animal for 15 years.
East-end Ottawa family dealing with massive rat infestation
Residents in Ottawa’s Elmridge Gardens complex are dealing with a rat infestation that just won’t go away. Now, after doing everything they can to try to fix the issue, they are pleading with the city to step in and help.
Mediterranean staple may lower your risk of death from dementia, study finds
A daily spoonful of olive oil could lower your risk of dying from dementia, according to a new study by Harvard scientists.
An El Nino-less summer is coming. Here's what that could mean for Canada
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Newfoundland and Labrador latest province to tighten rules on Airbnbs
Newfoundland and Labrador is the latest jurisdiction to bring in stricter rules for short-term rentals, with a coming set of regulations that will force operators to register with the provincial government.