“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.

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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.

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91��ɫ dance Professor first began conducting research after she personally experienced a series of injuries. Now she has become a leading expert in dance science, with numerous articles and publications dedicated to injury prevention, conditioning for dancers, motor learning and motor control, and the psychological aspects of dance injuries.

For three decades, Krasnow has been refining her research into C-I Training  (conditioning-with-imagery), a body training system she developed which incorporates conditioning exercises for muscular strength, endurance and flexibility, as well as visualization and imagery work for neuromuscular re-patterning (or movement re-education), alignment work and mind-body connectedness.

She has presented and delivered this system internationally, trains and certifies C-I Training instructors and since 1999 has created and distributed instructional videos for purchase. Through this work, she has helped thousands of dancers with injury prevention, appropriate warm-up procedures and improved training practices.

Left: Co-authors Jordana Deveau (left) and Donna Krasnow sign books at the launch

Krasnow’s latest publication, co-authored with dancer, choreographer and certified C-I Training instructor Jordana Deveau, presents her established C-I Training system in book form. was launched recently at Toronto’s 509 Dance Studio, home of the Canadian Children’s Dance Theatre.

“While the videos and C-I Training classes are ideal for practice and training, many people asked for a more in-depth explanation of the science and the underlying principles on which I built the system,” says Krasnow. “The book is an ideal resource for any performer who is looking for a deeper and richer understanding of how to use C-I Training in her own practice or with dance students.”

The training section of the book includes over 300 photos of dancers executing the C-I Training exercises, with detailed explanations of the posture and movement as well as coaching suggestions on how to optimize the exercise. Details of common postural problems and muscle imbalances, and diagrams of skeletal and muscular systems, are also included to help readers spot potential areas of improvement in themselves or their students.

Right: From left, research collaborators University of Toronto Professor Lynda Mainwaring, Donna Krasnow, chair of 91��ɫ Department of Dance Claire Wootten and Keith Thompson, president of Thompson Educational Publishing

Theories in motor control suggest that voluntary movement (like reaching for a book) is controlled by conscious areas of the brain, while involuntary movement (heartbeats, reflexes etc.) is of the non-conscious domain. Dynamic body alignment, a primary injury prevention consideration, is predominately involuntary and making improvements to one’s alignment is a gradual process that relies not only on muscle conditioning but also on retraining one’s non-conscious motor patterns. Krasnow’s approach was one of the earlier systems to blend both the conditioning and the imagery simultaneously in a holistic approach for maximum benefit and more rapid change.

An example of the holistic treatment for a dancer with a pelvis in anterior tilt, sometimes called swayback: “The conditioning approach would be to stretch the hip flexors and low back extensor muscles and strengthen the abdominals,” says Krasnow. “To add imagery to that could be to encourage the dancer to think of her pelvis as a bowl of water. Currently the water would be spilling out of the front, so she needs to imagine shifting the bowl to stop that spillage. Working with this image can enhance the exercises and speed her re-alignment.”

Right: 91��ɫ alumna Meredith Thompson (BFA Spec. Hon. '00, BEd '00) illustrates proper CI-Training technique. Photo by Gary Ray Rush.

She has a standard response for performers in her dance sciences classes at 91��ɫ who doubt the power of working with images. “There are many of you who have been stretching and strengthening for years. Let me ask you, has this corrected your alignment? You can have your body in the proper condition with good muscle balance, but if your brain doesn’t know how to recruit and release the muscles, you are no closer to your goal.”

Krasnow joined the Department of Dance in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts in 1987. She teaches modern dance based in Limón technique, composition/choreography, conditioning for dancers, dance kinesiology, prevention of dance injuries, motor learning for dance and repertory. She received 91��ɫ’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2002 in recognition of her outstanding contributions in the classroom and studio.

She holds a master’s of science degree with a focus in motor control from the University of Oregon, where she was the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Research Award, and is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Wolverhampton in Birmingham, England.

Her doctoral studies involve research into how dancers’ bodies move when doing a grande battement devant, a high forward kick, in three situations: at the ballet barre, free-standing and travelling through space. Using EMG (testing the electrical activity of muscles) and kinematic (bio mechanical study of motion) data, she hopes to prove that muscle use and movement biomechanics for that one particular move are surprisingly different in each situation. Krasnow hopes these insights will spark important changes in dance class structure and rehabilitation for lower leg injuries.

Krasnow’s articles have been published in Medical Problems of Performing Artists; Journal of Dance Medicine & Science; Impulse: the International Journal of Dance Science, Medicine, and Education; Journal of Dance Education; Bulletin of Osaka University of Health and Sport Sciences; Médecine des Arts; and Dance Research Journal.

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

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The first annual Muscle Health Awareness Day, organized by 91��ɫ’s  Muscle Health Research Centre, will bring together the latest findings on the contribution made by heart muscle and skeletal muscle to overall health and wellbeing.

A wide range of collaborative research on muscle biology research is being done at 91��ɫ’s Muscle Health Research Centre, by researchers from the Faculty of Health and the Faculty of Science and Engineering; scientists are examining muscle development, disease, metabolism, blood supply, injury and regeneration, as well as adaptation of muscle to exercise. Using molecular, cellular and whole-body techniques, a major goal is to learn how Canadians can benefit from exercise through adaptations in the metabolism and structure of muscle, says Professor David Hood, director of the Muscle Health Research Centre and Canada Research Chair in Cell Physiology.

Researchers from the Centre will be joined by scientists from the University of Toronto, Sick Kids Hospital, the University of Guelph, McMaster University and Brock University, who will present their findings during four sessions. More than 50 poster presentations will also be on display at Muscle Health Awareness Day, showing the wide variety of muscle research being done by graduate students.

The four sessions during Muscle Health Awareness Day include:

1. Metabolism − will provide a description of important protein and fat metabolism pathways in health and disease. Emphasis will be on how enzymes responsible for synthesizing new proteins in muscle cells are activated, and how fats are taken up into muscle cells and metabolized. This has important implications for muscle wasting conditions, as well as obesity.
2. The Cardiovascular System − will examine how heart muscle adapts to stress in various ways.  The session will focus on understanding how heart muscle cells respond to stressors such as exercise and heat and how novel methods can be used to identify important proteins that are found in cardiac disease conditions. It will also provide information about heart and smooth muscle signaling during hemodynamic stress, such as high blood pressure.
3. Muscle Development and Satellite Cells − will describe some of the important molecules that regulate the process by which large, mature muscle cells develop from small precursor cells that fuse together, allowing muscle contraction and providing the energy for contraction to take place. Research will also be presented about the importance of precursor cells (called satellite cells) in adult muscle, and how they respond to exercise and aging.
4. Exercise, Metabolism and Disease − will provide an understanding of important enzymes in the mitochondria that regulate carbohydrate and fat metabolism, and will relate mitochondrial function (the powerhouse of the cell) to states of physical activity and obesity in youth. Information will also be provided about muscle diseases that lead to exercise intolerance and muscle cramps.

WHEN:             Friday May 28, 9am to 5 pm
WHERE:           Computer Science & Engineering Lobby and Lecture Hall B, Keele campus
INFO:               /mhrc/Musclehealthday.htm.
MAP:                See # 19 on map, /yorkweb/maps/index.htm

By Janice Walls, media relations officer.

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Professors Caitlin Fisher, David Hood, Joel Katz, Steve Mason, Wendy Taylor and Peer Zumbansen will continue their respective research in digital culture, cell physiology, health psychology, Greco-Roman cultural interaction, experimental particle physics, and transnational economic governance and legal theory.

With the renewals, 91��ɫ maintains its total of 28 research chairs. “Federal research investments are crucial to attracting and retaining the world's best researchers,” said Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation. “The Canada Research Chairs program allows us to sustain 91��ɫ’s globally competitive research across health, the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. Our researchers’ findings help improve the quality of life, economic, and social well-being of Canadians and people around the world.”

Caitlin Fisher, Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Digital Culture and film professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts, investigates the future of narrative, interactive storytelling, and interactive cinema in the emerging area of virtual reality research. Her research develops techniques and narrative strategies for use in augmented reality (AR) environments, which is increasingly important for Canada's culture and entertainment industries as AR and associated technologies like smart phones become more commonplace.

Left: Caitlin Fisher

Under her direction, 91��ɫ’s AR Lab, part of the in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts, is conducting research at the forefront of art and science collaborations. The lab makes use of both established and emerging technologies to produce innovative research methods, expressive tools for artists and award-winning content that challenges cinematic and literary conventions while enhancing the ways in which people interact with their physical environment and with each other.

David Hood, CRC in Cell Physiology and kinesiology & health science professor in the Faculty of Health, is an internationally-recognized authority in muscle health, exercise and mitochondria. His publications have expanded on the important role that mitochondria play in muscle, and the beneficial effect of exercise in enhancing energy production, preventing cell death and attenuating disease processes.

Right: David Hood

Hood operates one of the world’s most advanced laboratories in the cellular physiology of mitochondria. In January 2010, he became the first director of the newly opened 91��ɫ Muscle Health Research Centre (MHRC), which is unique in Canada. The MHRC integrates research in mitochondria with biomedical research across the University.

Joel Katz, CRC in Health Psychology and psychology professor in the Faculty of Health, is a world-class researcher in the study of pain. His research has significant impact on the way pain is understood and managed in both preventative and rehabilitative medicine.

Left: Joel Katz

His major accomplishments include using a preventative approach to advance the treatment of acute post-operative pain, increasing our understanding of neonatal pain and how to manage it, identifying factors that predict the transition of acute to chronic pain, and discovering previously unrecognized gender differences in the experience of pain. Katz is coordinator of the 91��ɫ health psychology Graduate Diploma Program, the only program in Canada offering specialized training in health psychology leading to a diploma.

Steve Mason, CRC in Greco-Roman Cultural Interaction and history professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, explores issues of cultural identity among the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean under Hellenistic and Roman rule (200 BCE to 300 CE). He focuses on Judea and the Jewish Mediterranean diaspora in the context of other diasporas.

Right: Steve Mason

The most important literary sources for these questions are 30 surviving volumes by the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37 - c. 100 CE), and Mason is at the forefront of research into these works. He leads an international team of 14 scholars in supplying Josephus with a new translation and the first comprehensive . He has published five books and many articles on related subjects while editing and co-authoring another seven. He manages the popular online database, , and is completing a volume on the fateful Judean-Roman War of 66 to 74 CE.

, CRC in Experimental Particle Physics and physics professor in the Faculty of Science & Engineering, studies the high-energy particle collisions at the and at the accelerator. Her research aims to understand matter’s smallest indivisible components and the forces of interaction between them. Taylor is recognized by her peers as an expert in b-quark physics analysis and particle detector electronics development.

Left: Wendy Taylor

Her primary analysis found the first evidence of spontaneous matter-antimatter transitions of B0s mesons, composite particles that contain both a b-quark and an anti-s quark. She contributed to developing a new calorimeter trigger, which allows high-rate data collection. She is now developing low-noise radiation-hard readout electronics for a new particle detector and algorithms to search for the Higgs boson, the particle believed to be responsible for why matter in the universe has mass.

, CRC in Transnational Economic Governance & Legal Theory and professor in Osgoode Hall Law School, explores globalization’s impact on national political economies, concentrating on changing forms of production and on the politics of privatization and deregulation.

Right: Peer Zumbansen

Zumbansen's research is advancing the development of both a comparative and methodological perspective of globalization on national political economies. His work also explores broader questions concerning political sovereignty and the changing relationship between the state and the market, particularly in the European Union, Canada and the United States. Widely published in both German and English, Zumbansen is the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of the .

Gary Goodyear, minister of state (science & technology), announced the nationwide renewals in Ottawa on March 26. “Our government is investing in science and technology to create jobs, strengthen the economy and improve Canadians’ quality of life,” said Goodyear. “The Canada Research Chairs program is helping our universities develop and attract talented people, strengthening our capacity for leading-edge research, while creating jobs and economic opportunities for Canadians now and in the future."

The CRC program attracts the best talent from Canada and around the world, helping universities achieve research excellence in natural sciences and engineering, health sciences and social sciences and humanities.

For more information, visit the Web site.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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91��ɫ is flexing its muscle. With the recent launch of the Muscle Health Research Centre (MHRC), the University is devoting time and space to understanding what makes us move, reported .

“It’s a centre that brings together about 16 different scientists who all study muscle in some way. Mostly skeletal muscle, the muscles that make us move,” says David Hood, director of the centre.

Besides looking good, muscle is fundamental to our survival.

“Muscle is 40 per cent of your body, so it’s a large amount of your body mass,” says Hood. “It’s involved in metabolism and locomotion and it adapts. So many of us focus on exercise and how exercise promotes adaptations in muscle that make us healthier. It’s not about high-performance athletes. It’s really about the study of muscle and its relation to the health of Canadians.”

Muscle plays a large role in many health ailments. Diabetes, obesity, aging and even cancer are all related to muscle and its prevalence in the body.

“A third of cancer patients actually die of muscle wasting. They don’t die of the tumour. They die because that tumour secretes things that affect the condition of muscle, and eventually, they’ll have respiratory failure because the respiratory muscles aren’t working.”

The MHRC is the only centre in Canada devoted to studying muscle. “There’s plenty of room for lots of research and that’s why a centre like this is important,” says Hood. “We all have different interests in muscle and come from different sides of the coin, but we all study muscle and its implications for health.”

The centre has been in the works for a number of years but officially opened last month, said Metro. Because 91��ɫ doesn’t have a medical school, the centre is more research-oriented. However, Hood is looking to grow.

“My goal is to help this develop from the human side,” he said. “We’ve been studying animal models of muscle disease and dysfunction, and models of exercise for many years, but now we’re going to try to move to the human side of things.”

Part of the MHRC’s objective is to increase the visibility of biomedical science at 91��ɫ, and Toronto in general. “We have a new here at 91��ɫ. The idea is to attract scientists and students from all over the place. To bring people together and increase the visibility of muscle health research in Canada and around the world.”

By Leyla Emory. Reprinted courtesy of .

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“This centre is unique in that we’re zeroing in on skeletal muscle and its relationship to health, with a strong focus on what exercise can do,” says Professor David Hood, the centre’s founding director. “We’re looking for new discoveries on how exercise can benefit Canadians through adaptations in the metabolism and structure of muscle.”

The MHRC conducts collaborative research with scientists from the School of Kinesiology & Health Science and the Department of Biology.

“Like all research centres at 91��ɫ, the MHRC has an interdisciplinary mandate – that is, enabling researchers from different departments and disciplines to work together towards a common goal,” says Hood.

Scientists from the MHRC are investigating topics such as muscle metabolism, muscle development and muscle adaptations to exercise, metabolic disease and cancer. Professor Tara Haas and colleagues in the MHRC recently identified a cell-signalling process that stimulates blood vessel growth and may help individuals with diabetes to exercise and thereby improve their health (see YFile, Nov. 17, 2009). Hood’s research includes an ongoing series of investigations into the benefits of exercise (see YFile,  May 11, 2007, March 2, 2009 and January 18, 2010).

“As a leading research institution, we’re concerned with bringing the work of our scientists to bear on the real world and improving the health and well-being of Canadians,” says Harvey Skinner, dean of 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health. The centre will serve as an innovative hub for the life sciences within 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health, generating new knowledge and disseminating research findings to the public and the health system.

The opening ceremony featured guest speakers, including Olympic figure skater Barbara Underhill; Philip Gardiner, director of the Health, Leisure & Human Performance Research Institute at the University of Manitoba; and Jane Aubin, scientific director of the .

To learn more about muscle health research at 91��ɫ, visit the MHRC Web site or contact Hood at dhood@yorku.ca.

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

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