By Graduate Neuroscience Students At McGill
Child Abuse (CA) is defined as physical, emotional, or sexual maltreatment / neglect of a child. It has long-lasting effects on the brain and devastating consequences on psychological development. 1 in 3 Canadians experience maltreatment before the age of 15. It is one of the strongest predictors of depression and suicide. Currently, 300 million people […]
Let’s talk about a time you may wish you could forget: adolescence. Saying adolescence is complicated would be an understatement. But what about the long-term consequences of our short-sighted decisions? You see, adolescent experiences–such as drug use–can alter and shape maturation of the dopamine pathway, an important neural pathway for addiction and reward, and lead
Imagine: after 9 months, you’re in a hospital, welcoming your newborn baby. That very first moment you pick her up and put her on your arm, you thought your life would be different, and you’re right! Except not in the way you expected. For the first few years of her life she was not standing, walking,
Making Hope Happen Read More »
Piece of Mind is a multidisciplinary collective of neuroscientists, musicians, dancers and circus artists collaborating with the goal of presenting scientific concepts through performance arts. The majority of scientific advances are only communicated in writing, and remain within the academic realm. While art-science projects have been picking up steam as a means of engaging the
“Piece of Mind” Project Read More »
I start growing, even before you are born I grow in various sizes, Sometimes short and stout, Or long and strong, As I grow I talk with others around me, But only with the ones I trust, For if I fail to speak with them, I might as well turn to dust, With them I
An ode to a neuron Read More »
Growing up as scientists in a “publish or perish” culture, most of us think that publication (“the proof” of productivity) is the only thing that matters. This general pressure weighs heavily on graduate students’ daily lives as we prepare for a future as independent researcher. Number of publications and the accumulating sum of impact factors
Hackers and Chasers for Numbers: a Short Article about p-hacking Read More »
Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen report that giving melatonin prior to chemotherapy treatment prevents nerve damage and development of chemotherapy-induced pain in rats. A recent study published in the Journal of Pineal Research revealed that melatonin – a drug commonly used to ease the side effects of jet, can help in
A new study shows that jet lag drug could ease chemotherapy induced pain Read More »
The NeuroBlog is interviewing again! We’re excited to have the opportunity of speaking with Ihab Daou, an accomplished PhD student in Dr. Philippe Seguela’s lab at the Montreal Neurological Institute. In February 2016, Ihab first-authored an article describing a novel transgenic mouse model in which terminals of primary nociceptive fibers can be silenced using optogenetic techniques. In their
Silencing pain with light Read More »
In our latest post, we introduce you to some very recent research conducted by Avinash Vaidya, who has just defended his Ph.D. thesis in Dr. Lesley Fellows’ lab at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Avinash worked with patients with frontal lobe lesions on topics related to decision-making. His first-authored paper in Nature Communications investigates the neural circuitry underlying fixation-based value
Your brain on biased decision-making Read More »
Our new interview is with Mathieu Gauvin, Ph.D. student supervised by Dr. Pierre Lachapelle at the McGill Visual Electrophysiology Laboratory and Clinic. Mathieu works on the development of new methods for studying retinal function to better understand both normal and impaired visual processing. His findings (published in the Journal of Vision) show how using some cutting-edge techniques when
From 1D to 2D in the electrophysiology of the human retina Read More »