These new findings suggest that structural changes in this collection of brain regions may be critical to Alzheimer’s disease onset and this could eventually lead to patients being diagnosed earlier.

“The default network was a vulnerable area and it was more vulnerable in those who would go on to develop the disease,” says 91��ɫ psychology Professor Gary Turner of the Cognitive Aging Neuroscience and Neurointervention Lab in the Faculty of Health.

The network of brain regions highlighted in red and yellow show atrophy in both healthy aging and neurodegenerative disease. These regions are susceptible to normal aging and dementia

Turner and Cornell University Professor , the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow and director of the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition at Cornell, found that the brain’s grey matter in the default network shrinks with normal aging across the lifespan, but it does so much more sharply in those who go on to develop dementia, as well as those with a genetic predisposition for the disease. These changes were also associated with declines in general cognitive ability.

“Our data suggest that these structural brain changes may be detectable many years before behavioral signs appear,” says Turner. This could allow for much earlier interventions for Alzheimer’s disease than is currently possible. Their paper, “”, was published this month online and in-print in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Turner and Spreng, co-principal investigators, measured brain volume using the brain images of 848 people, from age 18 to 94, to determine the role of the default network in neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s. They were able to analyze data collected as part of the Open Access Series of Imaging Studies, which provided a cross-sectional data set, and the longitudinal Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, which looked at the same people multiple times over several years. By combining these two large datasets, the authors were able to measure brain changes from young to older adulthood and from healthy aging to neurodegenerative disease.

Gary Turner

“What we were really interested in doing with this work was looking at how the brain is altered across the lifespan,” says Turner. “The default network is already known to be implicated in Alzheimer’s disease[…]but we believe this is one of the first reports demonstrating these structural network changes across the lifespan from young to older adulthood and into Alzheimer’s disease. And we were able to look at changes simultaneously across the whole default network.”

Core areas of the network include the posterior cingulate cortex, the medial prefrontal cortex, the medial temporal lobes and the lateral parietal cortex.

They also found that these declines in brain volume were greater in the cohort who carried the APOE4 gene, a genetic marker for potentially developing Alzheimer’s disease, and those with cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of Alzheimer’s. This shows that structural changes in the default network may be associated with genetic risk of the disease.

“These results help us to better understand the pattern of brain change that occurs across the lifespan and into neurodegenerative disease,” says Turner, who received a two-year Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant of $85,000 to complete the project. “While not a central focus of this study, we hope that with further exploration these findings may, over time, help to inform diagnostic and prognostic decision-making in the clinic.”

In the future, Turner said this research could lay the groundwork for a new series of studies leading to better biomarkers for the disease. “Certainly, these findings highlight the importance of this network as a constellation of brain regions that warrants further study in terms of early identification of the disease.”

The focus of Turner’s research, he says, is to translate these cognitive neuroscience research findings into rehabilitation interventions to enhance cognitive functioning in healthy aging and acquired brain injury and slow the trajectory of cognitive decline in brain disease.

The post Researchers find brain's default network shrinks in healthy aging and dementia appeared first on Research & Innovation.

“Our recent study shows that exercise leads to expansion of the mitochondrial network and, as a result, energy is distributed to muscle in a more effective manner,” says Professor David Hood from the School of Kinesiology & Health Science in the Faculty of Health.

David Hood

On the other hand, the research shows that mitochondria become smaller or more fragmented when the muscle is not used – due to aging, for example – which leads to cellular damage and degeneration of muscle cells.

The study, “Expression of Mitochondrial Fission and Fusion Regulation Proteins in Skeletal Muscle During Chronic Use and Disuse”, assesses the effects of aging on mitochondrial morphology and has been accepted for publication by the peer-reviewed journal Muscle and Nerve.

Led by Hood, director of the Muscle Health Research Centre at 91��ɫ, the study was conducted by his graduate students Sobia Iqbal, Olga Ostojic, Kaustabh Singh and Anna-Maria Joseph.

The findings indicate that the proteins involved in maintaining the size and shape of mitochondria are also regulated by exercise, or lack thereof. According to the researchers, this can have important implications for energy production in muscle, the benefits of exercise and the consequences of chronic inactivity on our health.

The research received support from a Natural Science & Engineering Research Council of Canada grant.

The post Regular exercise leads to better energy distribution in muscle appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The saying, “looking at things with fresh eyes”, may be more than just a metaphor, according to new studies led by Professor Kari Hoffman of 91��ɫ’s Centre for Vision Research, which have been published in scholarly journals.

Left: Kari Hoffman

While searching for experiments to use in a research methods course, Hoffman took a fresh look at an old visual perception test and realized it might hold a clue to understanding how we see things and when we remember them. Hoffman says the insight came when she was reviewing results of a flicker-change blindness test, a simple classroom experiment used to show how difficult it is for people to see the difference in two almost identical images or scenes. She realized that what was once a trick of the eye was no longer effective due to her memory of the images.

That led Hoffman and biology graduate student Vivian Chau (right) to develop an experiment that would monitor the eye movement of test subjects as they tried to solve the visual puzzle. What they found was striking: when the viewer remembered the image, the eye movement that indicated the time it took to search and locate the part of the scene that had changed was dramatically reduced compared to when they were viewing it for the first time. This suggested that it was possible to tell when a person was looking at an image for the first time and when they recognized it from memory.

“Not everyone shows the fast search times, though,” says Hoffman. “A participant with amnesia failed to remember the changing objects and his eyes told the story. This participant had suffered damage to his medial temporal lobe, a region which is especially affected in Alzheimer’s patients and has been associated with memory function in healthy aging,” said Hoffman. “So we now have a task to help us study how that brain region functions to support memory formation.”

The study results were published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience ().

After seeing that eye movements could reflect memory, the outcome of brain processing, Hoffman and her lab team wondered if eye movements might also take part in influencing the inputs – how our brain processes images. In a second study, she and psychology graduate student Adrian Bartlett (right) found that eye movement is also an indication of the brain gearing up to process an image – a kind of neural “smart refresh” that created optimal conditions for seeing.

Hoffman says there is a noticeable change in a subject’s brain wave patterns when images are viewed with moving eyes as opposed to the more standard experimental method of viewing images with a fixed eye. “The neural populations become more synchronized,” she explains, “this can make processing an image easier and faster.”  They found that the brain has a kind of “smart refresh” period when it gets ready to process visual information. If the presentation isn’t synched to that cycle, the brain is not as good at processing the image.

Designers of learning materials can use this knowledge to create visual presentations that interact with a viewer’s movements, making the displays more easily processed and therefore more effective. The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience ().

Illustration above shows the path the viewer’s eyes followed when scanning the photo for the first time and then again the next day

“Although scientists often study movement as a separate process from perception and cognition,” Hoffman says, “our results reveal examples of how eye movements are intertwined with perceptual and cognitive processes. In both studies, the eye movements give us a more complete picture of perceptual and memory processes,” Hoffman explains.

Exercising the brain in this way, Hoffman says, may be optimal for neural rewiring or “plasticity” that leads to better learning, more efficient performance and recovery after loss of function, such as following stroke. “This provides support for a more integrative view of brain function – one in which actions help shape brain performance.”

For more information on the Perception & Plasticity Lab, visit their website.

The studies, which were conducted in collaboration with researchers Jennifer Ryan, Shayna Rosenbaum and Nikos Logothetis, were funded through an NSERC Discovery Grant and an Ontario MRI Early Researcher Award. Hoffman is a professor in psychology & biology in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health and a member of the Neuroscience Graduate Diploma Program.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Roving eyes help us see things better and faster appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The event, sponsored by the Muscle Health Research Centre (MHRC), featured a series of lectures looking at muscle adaptation, disease, development, blood flow and metabolism. Some of the key discussions revolved around the role of stem cells in muscle repair, aging and cancers, as well as the causes and reversal of aging at a muscular level.

Professor Olivier Birot (left) of 91��ɫ’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science presented his work on the role played by specific proteins in the control of blood vessel growth in muscle. He also looked at the role exercise plays in initiating the process of new vessel growth.

MHAD highlights the work of both junior and senior faculty members from across southern Ontario, and gives graduate students an opportunity to network and present their work in an informal, but educational manner. Four of the graduate students were awarded presentation prizes at the May 27 event for their work in muscle research.

Right: Winners of the MHAD poster contest (from left), Roxanna Chis of the University of Toronto, Jenna Gillen of McMaster University, Andrew Mitchell of the University of Waterloo and Brennan Smith of the University of Guelph

The Muscle Health Research Centre in the Faculty of Health provides a centralized and focused research emphasis on the importance of skeletal muscle to the overall health and well-being of Canadians. The centre’s upcoming initiatives include the sponsorship of a seminar provided by Professor Bengt Saltin of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Centre, who will be receiving an honorary doctorate degree for his exceptional research in the area of muscle and exercise physiology during 91��ɫ’s June 15 convocation ceremony.

For more information, visit the Muscle Health Research Centre or contact Professor David A. Hood, director of the Muscle Health Research Centre, at dhood@yorku.ca. To view the MHAD program and abstracts, click here.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Role of stem cells in muscle repair discussed at Muscle Health Awareness Day appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Right: Thomas Klassen

The has asked Klassen to conduct research on new policies for Korea’s labour force and to share his findings with decision-makers. The institute is responsible for contributing to public policy and raising awareness of labour issues through timely and analytical research. As well, Klassen will spend several months studying Korea's retirement policies. Specifically, he will examine how the changing labour market, particularly a rapidly aging population, impacts mandatory retirement practices.

His research in Korea will also provide insights for Canada, which also has a rapid increase in older workers.

An expert on retirement policies, Klassen teaches courses on the politics of aging. He is the co-editor of (2005), the only book on mandatory retirement in Canada. Last year, Klassen co-edited with Jae-jin Yang the book .

This will not be Klassen's first working stint in South Korea. In 2006-2007, he taught at Yonsei University in Seoul and wrote about the lighter side of the experience for 91��ɫU magazine under the title .

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Thomas Klassen heads to Korea to research and mobilize new labour force policies appeared first on Research & Innovation.

She accepted the Institute of Aging at the annual conference of the Canadian Association on Gerontology in Montreal. The prize, which augments major scholarship funding she has already received, included the money, an invitation to the conference and, best of all, a chance to adjudicate research posters.

“It’s perfect timing for me,” says the first-year doctoral student in the Faculty of Health's School of Kinesiology & Health Science. “I’ll be able to see what’s going on in my field. Winning this award has been very motivating."

Hawkins started work this fall developing and evaluating a clinical assessment tool to measure visuomotor integration (hand-eye coordination) that could lead to early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. For this, CIHR is funding her research to the tune of $35,000 a year – $30,000 in salary plus $5,000 research allowance – for each of the next three years. It’s the biggest scholarship Hawkins has ever received.

Left: Kara Hawkins

Sit down with Hawkins at her corner desk in the office she shares with other graduate students and you’ll notice only one image taped to the wall next to her computer. “That’s my brain,” says the 27-year-old of the vertical MRI scan taken this fall in 91��ɫ’s new Neuroimaging Laboratory, located in the Sherman Health Science Research Centre.

The brain. Hawkins became fascinated with it early in her undergraduate years. "You can't understand behaviour without understanding the brain. That's what interested me most." She started studying psychology then branched into kinesiology. It was a natural detour. “I’m an athlete,” says the former varsity goalie who now plays forward for the Aurora Panthers and for the Ice-O-Topes, an intramural team at 91��ɫ. “I wanted to learn how the brain controls movement.”

After graduating in 2006, she jumped at an offer to work as a neuropsychology assistant at Baycrest, a centre specializing in geriatric research and care. “I’ve always been interested in clinical applications,” says Hawkins. Baycrest sparked an interest in aging and two years later she returned to 91��ɫ to pursue a master’s degree and neuroscience graduate diploma, delving deeper into the neurophysiology of complex motor control. She won three scholarships to do it and graduated last spring.

Now a doctoral student, she’s back in a clinical setting. At 91��ɫ Central Hospital, she is collaborating with the geriatric physician to diagnose aging patients who show signs of mental deterioration. Currently, doctors use language, cognition, memory and attention tests to score patients’ mental status out of 30. It’s an imprecise science, and Hawkins has developed and is testing a new measurement tool that could be more precise.

The tool looks like a laptop. There are two touch-sensitive screens, one vertical and the other horizontal (where the keyboard would normally be). The patient is instructed to reach for a target that appears on the vertical screen, at first directly with her hand and then more indirectly using the horizontal touch screen to manipulate a cursor. The test is not educationally or language biased, and Hawkins can determine which part of the brain the patient is using and the level of dysfunction based by the accuracy and speed of the response.

The brain is a complex network of communicating parts. When someone has dementia, the lines of communication deteriorate and misfire. Hawkins’ test aims to detect the breakdown in the visual-motor and cognitive-motor communication lines. “These touch-screen tracking tests tap into that.”

Hawkins is currently trying to recruit 60 to 90 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and the same number who are aging normally. Over the next three years, she’ll test her diagnostic tool. She is particularly interested in finding out if it can detect early and more subtle stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Interested participants may contact her at karah@yorku.ca.

The earlier we can catch signs of mental deterioration, the more time there will be for intervention that could delay the onset, says Hawkins. Earlier and more precise diagnosis could lead to better education and better care for patients, she says.

Hawkins, now a member of the , is doing her research under the supervision of  Prof. Lauren Sergio, an expert in hand-eye coordination and director of 91��ɫ’s Sensorimotor Neuroscience Laboratory. When she’s finished her PhD, she hopes to continue exploring diseases associated with aging.

By Martha Tancock, YFile contributing writer

The post PhD student Kara Hawkins wins CIHR award to diagnose Alzheimer's early stages appeared first on Research & Innovation.

“From Cats Eyes to Headaches: Adventures in Neuroscience” will take place Thursday, Nov. 11, from 2 to 3:30pm at 214 Calumet College, Keele campus. RSVP by Nov. 10 to smiceli@yorku.ca. Everyone is welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be served.

Left: Fran Wilkinson

In her research, Wilkinson, a member of the at 91��ɫ, has examined the mechanisms of face and object recognition in the visual brain and how vision changes during aging. She is among the researchers working in the Sherman Health Science Research Centre.

“Throughout my career I have been fascinated by how the visual pathways of the brain capture and interpret the visual world. In this talk, I will briefly describe the sometimes winding path my own research career has taken, examining this central question in neuroscience from a variety of angles, using new technologies as they have come into being,” says Wilkinson.

“I will then discuss my current work on vision and migraine headache as an example both of the interface between basic and clinical neuroscience, and of the role of serendipity in research.”

The Faculty Research Profile Series, presented by Calumet College, features eminent 91��ɫ faculty speaking on their broad research interests rather than about a single narrow topic. Audiences will hear what professors have devoted their careers to studying, how they do what they do and why.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

The post Professor Fran Wilkinson discusses research on vision and migraine headaches November 11 appeared first on Research & Innovation.

An excerpt from Klassen's original article follows:

South Korea (henceforth Korea) faces a challenge quite distinct from any other: the world’s most rapidly ageing population. The speed of population ageing in Korea is unprecedented in human history. From a population profile that resembled a pyramid (with many younger individuals and few older individuals) in 1990, the profile is now diamond-shaped (with a large middle-aged population). In another couple of decades, the country’s population will be an inverse pyramid: few young people and many older ones.

By 2050, the median age of the population of Korea is projected to be 57 years, making it the most elderly nation in the world. In contrast, at present, Japan has the oldest median age at 43 years, while Korea’s stands at 37years.

Population ageing is not unique to Korea. Many European nations, and Japan, have faced it. However, as Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Director-General of the World Health Organization, noted: “While the developed countries became rich before they became old, the developing countries will become old before they become rich.” That is the dilemma for Korea, and for other rapidly ageing nations such as China.

For Korea, things were never meant to turn out this way. Its government and people never aimed for the distinction of the world’s most rapidly ageing country. Indeed, Koreans were not supposed to stop have babies, especially since there was never a one-child policy as in China. Rather, as the economy grew and consumption increased over the past several decades, couples making their individual choices began to opt for fewer and fewer children. By the mid-1980s, the fertility rate (the average number of births per woman) dropped below the replacement rate of 2.1, and by the mid 1990s below 1.5. For nearly the past decade, it has not exceeded 1.3 giving Korea the distinction of having the lowest fertility of any country.

Klassen's complete article is available on .

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

The post Professor Thomas Klassen: South Korea’s population targeted to be ‘most elderly’ by 2025 appeared first on Research & Innovation.

"There are better ways of doing many things regarding long-term residential care, more creative ways,” says Armstong. She is confident that the study will come up with ideas on how to improve conditions for workers and residents. “Long-term residences need to be a positive option, not the last resort as it now seems to be in Canada."

Armstrong says people feel shame when they have to admit a family member to a long-term care facility. “People see long-term care as a failure of themselves, their family and the health-care system. The main goal is always to keep them out of long-term care homes, rather than saying how can we make them attractive interesting places to be and work.” People are apologetic for not being able to care for their loved ones at home, but home care is not necessarily ideal either, Armstrong says. There can be issues with caregiver burnout and elder abuse, and it’s often just not a viable option as many women – still the main caregivers – work full time.

Right: Pat Armstrong

“How we treat this vulnerable population and those who provide their care is a critical indicator of our approach to equity and social justice, as well as to care,” says Armstrong. “Long-term residential care is a barometer of values and practices.” It raises questions regarding fundamental human and social rights, the role of the state, as well as the responsibilities of individuals, families and governments.

"Reimagining Long-Term Residential Care: An International Study of Promising Practices" is a seven-year project with $2.5 million in funding from the ’s program. Armstrong will lead an international team of researchers seeking to identify the most promising practices for long-term residential care, ones that treat both providers and residents with dignity and respect. The team is less interested in pointing out what’s broken in the system, than in coming up with promising practices to improve it.

Up until now, there has been little research on residential care in Canada or elsewhere that has taken this kind of approach, says Armstrong. What has been done tends to focus on issues such as patient abuse and under-staffing rather than on issues related to gender and diversity, the relationship between the conditions of work and conditions of care or on policies that will lead to quality care. Meanwhile, the need for long-term residential care in Canada is expected to grow in the face of psychiatric, chronic care and rehabilitation hospital closures, the shift in hospital focus to short-term acute care and outpatient services, and with an aging population, she says.

The research team, which includes physicians, architects, sociologists, philosophers, social workers, historians, political scientists and economists, along with representatives of competing interests, such as employers and unions, will compare practices in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Norway, Sweden and Germany. They will look at four different themes – work organization, accountability, approaches to care, and financing and ownership.

Left: An elderly woman sits by a window. Photo by Chalmers Butterfield.

In the area of work organization, researchers hope to find care models that better meet the needs and balance the rights of residents, providers, managers, families and communities. Under accountability, they are looking for structures which nurture care and inspire quality workplace relations. They will also investigate financing and ownership models to identify the contexts, regulations, funding and conditions that allow residents and providers to flourish and that ensure equitable access to quality long-term residential care.

“We’re hoping to get the pieces of a kind of mosaic to guide us to a better place for all the countries…to producing an integrated picture of long-term residential care and how to do things differently,” says Armstrong. “In many ways, the approaches to care are the most important.” In this country, the emphasis seems to be more on finances, but it is imperative that approaches to care provide a viable, desirable and equitable option for individuals, families and those who provide care. Both providers and residents need to be treated with dignity and respect in the approaches to care, she adds.

The plan is to have researchers work in all four thematic areas, not just their area of expertise, to help generate new ideas and novel ways of approaching problems. “I emphasize the ideas because we're not just thinking about the residents, but the families, the workers and the governments,” Armstrong says.

Long-term care raises many complex issues dealing with gender, diversity, aging, sexuality and providing medical care once the domain of hospitals. Typically, long-term care residents have been mostly women, currently about 80 per cent, but the number of men in care has increased. So has the number of younger people needing constant care and not served by a hospital. Most care workers are also women, many of whom are from racialized communities. Trying to find the most promising practices is not an easy task and one size will definitely not fit all, but at the same time there is much room for improvement, Armstrong says.

Armstrong, who holds a Canadian Health Services Research Foundation/Canadian Institutes of Health Research Chair in Health Services & Nursing Research, expects the project to create readily usable research.

“We hope the research will make a difference long before the project is done.”

Armstrong is a professor of sociology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and an executive member of both the 91��ɫ Institute for Health Research and the Graduate Program in Health Policy & Equity.

The post Professor Pat Armstrong's long-term residential healthcare study looks to improve national and international conditions appeared first on Research & Innovation.

“The suburbs have not received a lot of attention, so we’re trying to shift the lens, so to speak,” says Keil, director of the City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY). “Urbanization is at the core of the growth and crisis of the global economy today. Yet, the crucial aspect of 21st-century urban development is suburbanization, which is defined as the combination of an increase in non-central city population and economic activity, as well as urban spatial expansion.”

Left: Suburbs being built in 91��ɫ Region. Photo by Roger Keil.

With $2.5 million in research funding through the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada’s program, Keil, along with some 43 researchers from around the globe, will study various aspects of what he likes to call the in-between city. Global Suburbanisms: Governance, Land and Infrastructure in the 21st Century is “the first major research project that takes stock of worldwide suburban developments in a systematic way. By studying suburbs, we analyze recent forms of urbanization and emerging forms of urbanism across the world, but we also take into view the dilemmas of aging suburbanity,” he says. Canadian suburbanization and suburbanism trends will serve as a critical basis for understanding suburbanization in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.

What makes suburbs so important to study is their abundant growth. In the 1800s, only about two per cent of the world’s population was urbanized. That increased to about 10 per cent in the 1900s and to almost 50 per cent in the early 2000s. The suburbs are changing and growing, and, in North America at least, they are becoming the place to be. “It’s a percentage increase but also a real increase because the world population has risen dramatically,” says Keil. “More and more people don’t live in dense urban centres anymore, they live in suburbs. So now we call it suburbanization instead of urbanization.” Canada is one of the most highly urbanized countries in the world and that includes the suburbs. When people immigrate to Canada, they often move straight to the suburbs, places like Brampton and Markham, bypassing cities like Toronto altogether.

Right: Roger Keil

The question then becomes, “When we see a suburb, how do we understand it? We want to create a different way of looking at things,” says Keil. “We also hope in the process…this information becomes useful to users of suburban spaces, where they consume and produce, as well as to developers.”

By examining the governance of suburbanization, researchers will get a better idea of how development is guided and regulated, and how state, market and civil society actors are involved. The seven-year project is comprised of many smaller studies of two to four years in length. The two prime anchors will be land – housing, shelter systems, real estate, greenbelts and megaprojects – and infrastructure, including transportation, water and social services.

Keil’s own keen interest is in greenbelts and the relationships between natural and social, urban and suburban. How, for instance, does water fit in? Where does it come from, a pipe, a lake, a well? What is the relationship of suburbanization to water? How is it used? “We need to develop alternatives and this is particularly true in environmental metabolism of waste disposal, water, smog. The energy use has increased…the environmental bads growing out of suburbs have outpaced suburbanization,” he says. “We all live in one environmental global space.” There is a need to understand that interconnectivity.

Left: Suburb of Kuisebmond in Namibia, Africa. Photo by Roger Keil.

In the process of studying suburbanization, researchers will be up against the traditional biases and ingrained way people think about the areas surrounding the city core, often as urban sprawl. “We need to break down and expand the way people look at the suburbs,” says Keil. There is not just one type of suburban development. There are the squatter settlements in Africa and Latin America, the expanding outskirts of India and China, the peripheral high-rise developments in Europe and Canada, and North America’s gated communities. With the different types of development come different social and cultural norms, land-use patterns and forms of transportation. “Through one lens we say these are all suburbanizations.” Until now, there has been “no serious attempt to bring all these phenomena together.”

This project will look at the differences between central cities and suburbs, as well as the diversity of suburban development. “Suburbs are very diverse ethnically, culturally and lifestyle-wise and the gender roles are not as traditional as 'Leave it to Beaver' may have led us to believe.” People around the world have negotiated the suburban realm in a variety of different ways.

New forms of suburbanization are being created all the time. There are copycat North American suburbs in Calcutta, for instance. Keil expects that suburbs around the world have different trajectories of where they’re going and he hopes that they can learn from one another. As it turns out, all cities and suburbs are not looking like Los Angeles or Chicago, as once thought. “We’re turning that upside down,” says Keil. “Conceptually, we want to rewrite the books. The suburbs can all be understood under a number of guidelines we want to develop. So there is a common lens we can look through despite the large variety of forms we see.”

In addition to the various studies, classes, workshops and conferences will held around the world. There will be a travelling multimedia exhibition at the end, a book series and a series of documentaries produced in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada. 91��ɫ’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit will connect the research with policy-makers and community organizations over the span of the project.

Through this project, the suburbs may finally get a little respect.

For more information, visit the CITY Web site.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Researcher and City Institute director shifts the lens to suburbs around the globe appeared first on Research & Innovation.