The grant is designed to assist women with university studies, which will lead to careers helping to improve the quality of other women's lives – a goal Roosen plans on achieving. Her doctoral research will include in-depth analysis of body image and eating concerns in young women with physical disabilities.

Through a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, Roosen plans to survey disabled women to find out if they have “faced many barriers to treatment or to making healthy lifestyle choices; do they see their experiences as different from those of able bodied people; and do they feel misunderstood.”

According to the research literature, women with disabilities have an increased risk of developing an eating disorder, but these same women are not showing up at programs designed to deal with the issue, says Roosen, who studies in 91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Health.

“Obesity is higher in physically disabled women, as there is a lack of access to various healthy lifestyle programs and lack of ability for physical activity,” says Roosen. Doctors often encourage these women to diet, yet they’re not given appropriate accessible resources. “Hearing their stories has made me want to work with them, as I felt it was an area that is being overlooked.”

Having conducted a clinical practicum at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health for women with eating disorders, she has witnessed the lack of involvement of disabled women first-hand. That’s when she began to ask questions, such as: are eating disorders programs set up to handle a disabled person? She believes the answer will be no.

Roosen knows intimately some of the barriers experienced by young physically disabled women. She was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of 12. During her time at 91ŃÇÉ«, she has been a strong advocate for disabled students.

She has published two chapters on body image and one article on disability and psychotherapy, and frequently speaks to the community on disability awareness, eating disorders and body image in women.

Roosen has previously won the Terry Fox Humanitarian Award and a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

For more information about the grant for Canadian Women Graduate students, visit the website.

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

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Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience higher rates of bullying, whichĚýareĚýassociated with a higher incidence of mental health issues, according to a study in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders this month by 91ŃÇÉ« researchers.

“Very little research has been done to assess the relationship between bullying and mental health in youth with ASD. It’s always been suspected there was a link, but this study confirms that,” says 91ŃÇÉ« Psychology Professor Jonathan Weiss, lead researcher of the study and co-author of the article, along with Debra Pepler, Distinguished Research Professor in Psychology, and first author M. Catherine Cappadocia, PhD candidate in clinical-developmental psychology.

M. Catherine Cappadocia

“In the study, those youth with ASD who experienced little or no victimization, less than two or three times in the past month, compared to those victimized at least once a week, exhibited less anxiety, self-injury and over-sensitive behaviours,” says Cappadocia.ĚýShe, Weiss and Pepler, who is scientific co-director of the Promoting RelationshipsĚý& Eliminating Violence Network (), are allĚýmembers ofĚý91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Health.

In “”, the researchers surveyed 192 parents whose children, between the ages of five and 21 and enrolled in elementary or secondary school up to Grade 12, had been diagnosed with ASD. The authors examined the parents’ reports of victimization, along with the association between the rate of victimization experienced and mental health issues. Seventy-five per cent reported their child with ASD had been bullied within the last month at school, 23 per cent reported victimization two or three times, 13 per cent reported victimization once a week and 30 per cent two or more time a week. Fifty per cent of the youth with ASD had experienced victimization for more than a year, and that can lead to anxiety, depression, self-injury, hyperactivity, over-sensitivity and a lower self-concept, says Cappadocia.

ĚýĚý

Jonathan Weiss

“It’s one of the first studies to look at bullying in youth with ASD. It’s important as it shines a light on youth with ASD and victimization,” says Weiss. “I think it really highlights that chronic victimization is common for some of these youth. A large percentage of the youth in this study experience chronic victimization. Those are the youth that have significantly more mental health concerns.” In addition, he says, one in 110 children has been diagnosed with ASD. “It’s one of the most common identifications in the school system.”

One factor that puts youth with ASD at risk for victimization is when they have more difficulty being assertive and making friends at school. They often lack social and pragmatic skills, and their parents may be less empowered to effect change as a result of the number of major stresses in their lives. “These are a lot of the same factors that are found in the general population of kids that are bullied,” says Weiss. “What really stands out in this study is the association with these risk factors.”

A lack of friends is a significant risk factor for bullying even in the general population and leaves these children unprotected by their peers. That means no one is going to stand up for them when someone starts to bully them. “Eighty-five per cent of the time when bullying happens, peers are watching,” says Cappadocia. “If a peer stands up, 50 per cent of the time the bullying stops. Peer support makes a huge difference and represents a robust protective factor these kids are missing.”

ĚýDebra Pepler

Youth with ASD may also be more vulnerable because they lack the skills needed to react effectively to victimization when it does occur. “When children with ASD are targeted, there can be a more intense behavioural reaction, which may encourage the child who is bullying to continue,” she says. “If a child with ASD has a strong emotional or behavioural reaction, the bullying can become chronic, especially if peers tend to jump in and encourage the child who is bullying. It can keep escalating.”

Weiss, Pepler and Cappadocia all do clinical work in addition to research. In her clinical work, Cappadocia frequently sees youth with ASD who have been bullied. “Part of the interest in pursuing this particular research came from being interested clinically in how to help these children.”

The next step is to find interventions to help these children and their classmates, which would then translate to the general population, says Weiss. He is looking to run groups at 91ŃÇÉ« next year for youth with ASD who experience bullying, which will look at all facets of the problem, from peers, the school, their family, as well as the child.

He is also interested in looking at what makes some youth with ASD, who’ve been victimized, resilient. He’ll be examining what the peer, family and school relations are like, and why they may buffer the potential mental health impact of victimization.

Cappadocia received support through the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child & Youth Mental Health at CHEO Graduate Award and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships Doctoral Award. Weiss was supported by a New Investigator Fellowship from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, while Pepler was supported by Networks of Centres of Excellence through its support of PREVNet.

For more information, visit the website.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

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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 91ŃÇɫ’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.” ĚýThey 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 91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Health and a member of the Neuroscience Graduate Diploma Program.

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Migration is a complex phenomenonĚýthat can have important consequence on mental health, say two 91ŃÇÉ« professors who will talk about some of the assumptionsĚýmade in conducting researchĚýon immigrant mental health at the upcoming Multicultural Mental Health Promotion.

Michaela Hynie (left), associate director of the 91ŃÇÉ« Institute for Health Research and a 91ŃÇÉ« psychology professor, and Yvonne Bohr, director of 91ŃÇɫ’s LaMarsh Centre for Child & Youth Research and a psychology professor, will draw on their own research to discuss assumptions in immigrant mental health research.

Multicultural Mental Health Promotion will take place Wednesday, Feb. 15, from noon to 2pm, at 519 91ŃÇÉ« Research Tower, Keele campus.

Following opening remarks by Harvey Skinner, dean of 91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Health, and Nazilla Khanlou, co-director of the Ontario Multicultural Health Applied Research Network, Hynie and Bohr will conduct an interactive roundtable discussion. In addition, they will also make use of narrated- and video-based case studies to help frame the discussion.

Left: Yvonne Bohr

As part of the discussion they will explore how the phenomenon and experiences of migration can differ along a number of dimensions, and how these differences can impact the mental health of migrant families. Participants will be invited to join the discussion with their own experiences in research and practice regarding assumptions, their alternatives and how they shape the understanding of mental health among migrant populations.

Some of the assumptions Bohr and Hynie will examine include those about the geographic space inhabited by migrant families, the source and adaptiveness of coping strategies, and the causes of behaviour and well-being.

“For some families, their migration experience might better be described as transnational, with family members repeatedly spending extended periods of time in more than one country,” says Bohr.

Coping strategies, she says, need to be considered in context. That context includes time/era, geographic location, availability of structural supports and culture. Change in any of these dimensions can render a formerly adaptive strategy less adaptive.

As for adaptiveness, “we often assume that differences between migrant and non-migrant families in the receiving country are due to acculturation or the migration process, but we often do not compare migrant families to non-migrant families in the country of origin and so cannot be certain about causes,” says Hynie.

The event is sponsored by the Ontario Multicultural Health Applied Research Network.

To RSVP, contact owhchair@yorku.ca.

For more information, visit the Ontario Multicultural Health Applied Research Network website.

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Left: Anne Russon

A leading primatologist, Russon works on the psychological abilities of great apes. She is one of the few researchers who study non-human cognition in the field and she discovered that orangutans are capable of imitation. Russon has disseminated her findings through numerous co-authored papers, book chapters and lectures. Her work has received major research grants from the Indianapolis Zoo, the Leakey Foundation and the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada. Her findings have been widely covered in scientific and popular media. SheĚýhas also served as scientific adviser for several foundations, national parks and documentaries.

Right: Bettina Bradbury

A nationally recognized scholar, Bradbury is a leading feminist historian of family. She has recently published Wife to Widow: Lives, Laws and Politic in Nineteenth Century Montreal. This book uses an impressive quantitative methodology and analyzes a wide range of sources to show how Montreal couples opted for diverse forms of “companionate patriarchy” within their marriages, depending on their social class and cultural heritage. ĚýBradbury's work is the culmination of years of federally-funded research. Her peers have described her work as “groundbreaking” and as “a fine example of how to get at and illuminate the lives and experiences of ordinary folk.”

The awards ceremony was organized by Glendon Research Services and took placeĚýon Nov. 30.

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“Your ability to recognize objects and your ability to recognize scenes are independent,” says Steeves.Ěý

Their study is published in the December issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience – “TMS to the Lateral Occipital Cortex Disrupts Object Processing but Facilitates Scene Processing”.

Left: Psychology Professor Jennifer Steeves applies rTMS stimulation toĚýPhD candidate Caitlin Mullin. Images of Mullin's brain can be seen on the adjacent screenĚý

The finding discounts an earlier theory that scene perception relies on the recognition of individual objects and instead finds that the gist of a scene can be ascertained by its spatial layout alone.

Steeves and Mullin conducted two experiments. Both showed that when the ability to see objects is impaired, the brain can still determine what it’s looking at by taking in the scene. But what surprised the researchers is that when object recognition was temporarily knocked out, the ability to categorize scenes, such as distinguishing a forest from a cityscape, increased.

“It’s like you can see the forest better when you can’t see the trees,” says Steeves, who heads up the Perceptual Neuroscience LabĚýin 91ŃÇÉ«'s . “We didn’t expect this at all. The stimulationĚýmust be releasing some inhibitory process in people's brains.”

The experiments involved nine individuals with healthy brains. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) was applied to the left lateral occipital cortex (LO), the object processing area of the brain just behind each ear, to disrupt object processing. This was done while showing the subjects pictures of scenes and objects.

Right: Jennifer Steeves

The idea was to see how the LO contributed to the perception of scenes. The rTMS momentarily scrambled the neurons in the LO, preventing the subject from recognizing the objects, but they were able to categorize the scenes more quickly and accurately than before. The first experiment involved using a longer disruption time for object processing than that used in the second experiment.

“There was a split second interruption to the brain in the second experiment,” says Steeves. Still, the second experiment confirmed the findings of the first. “It’s a really robust effect. The TMS showed us that even though the two functions are independent, they still work together.”

Steeves and Mullin are now doing research find out what other parts of the brain are affected when rTMS is applied to specific areas. “We’re finding so far that stimulating one region can have an effect on other areas,” says Mullin.

The research is part of the nuts and bolts of mapping the brain, which could have implications down the road in helping people with brain injuries or informing computer modelling. “What’s nice is we’re learning about networks in the brain,” says Steeves. And that is where it all starts.

The experiments were funded through grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Research Fund and the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

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

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The talk, “Orangutans: Research & Rainforest Protection in Borneo”, will take place Nov. 10, from noon to 1:30pm, at 305 91ŃÇÉ« Lanes, Keele campus. There will also be a panel discussion with representatives of BOS Canada. Light refreshments will be served.

The event is designed to help spread the message about the work Russon is doing in Kutai National Park, about the work ofĚýBOS Canada and about the many potential opportunities for research available in this incredibly unique and threatened wilderness.

Russon specializes in research on wild orangutan intelligence and has recently taken over Camp Kriu in Kutai National Park in Indonesian Borneo, where she studies a large population of wild orangutans. Her work is represented in Canada as part of BOS Canada.

In 2002, Borneo suffered massive fires. Kutai National Park was heavily damaged andĚýwas thought to be a write-off by many conservation biologists. As Russon will discuss during her talk, this was anything but the case. Secondary growth in the forest of Kutai has taken off, providing an incredibly rich habitat for wildlife with faster growing plants and more available fruit than in a primary forest setting.

Left: Anne Russon

Consequently, a healthy wild orangutan population is now thriving there. The park, however, is not unthreatened. Across the narrow Sangata River that divides Kutai from private land, there is a coal mine large enough to be seen from space. Like the rest of Borneo, the park risks being re-zoned for timber, mining or palm oil, should its value as a nature reserve come into dispute.

It is important to note that this region of Indonesia represents the second most biologically diverse area of the world after the Amazon. It is quickly being swallowed by the oil, timber and mining industries with little regard for the indigenous peoples who live on the land.

Russon’s profile in the park, as someone living and working there, helps to keep it protected. To continue building the profile of her project and expanding the research activities at Camp Kriu, Russon is welcoming interested students and researchers to join her.

For more information, visit the .

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The award is, in part, based on the researcher’s record of early career achievement. For Weiss, that encompasses the research on developmental disabilities that he’s conducted over the last three or moreĚýyears. He is one of two recipients of the award this year, handed out by the CPA.

Right: Jonathan Weiss

“The award is really recognition for the type of research I’ve been able to do prior to and since beginning at 91ŃÇÉ«,” says Weiss, a clinical psychologist in 91ŃÇɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health. “It’s been great to be recognized by psychologists, not just in the field ofĚýdevelopmental disabilities, but by colleagues from other fields.”

He is co-investigator for three Canadian Institutes of Health Research-funded projects, two of which look at children with developmental disabilities and the third at understanding pathways to emergency health care for adolescents and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Weiss also received a three-year New Investigator Fellowship from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation in 2010 to study people with developmental disabilities, who make up between one andĚýthree per cent of the Canadian population. At least one in three people with developmental disabilities will have mental health problems or serious challenging behaviours as an adolescent or young adult, says Weiss.

His goal for this project is to learn what leads a young person with developmental disability to have mental health problems, and how it is related to their service use, their skills, academic success and family functioning.

For more information about the President’s New Researcher Award, visit the website.

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The Canadian-born-and-raised Papadopoulos has called Britain home for the past 14 years. She is known there as both a leading academic and as "Dr. Linda", a popular media commentator and adviser to the British government. She has her own skin-care line, LP Skin Therapy, which retails, among other places, in the luxury British department store Harrods.ĚýĚý

"The skin and the psyche are interconnected. You don't have to be a psychologist to understand the link stress has to your skin," says Papadopoulos, who is the author of eight books, ranging from the academic text Psychodermatology: The Psychological Impact of Skin Disorders to Mirror Mirror: Dr. Linda's Body Image Revolution.ĚýĚý

Papadopoulos became interested in the effect skin conditions have on personality because her cousin had vitiligo, a relatively rare disorder that causes depigmentation, creating light patches of skin. "She went from being open to being very quiet," she recalls.ĚýĚý

"You realize that in our beauty obsessed society, if you look less than perfect, it can have a profound impact on your self-esteem. Girls feel valued by how they look," says Papadopoulos, who did her undergraduate degree at Toronto's 91ŃÇÉ« before moving to Britain to do graduate work. She is a correspondent to the BBC and CNN, and a contributing editor to Cosmopolitan magazine's British edition.ĚýĚý

Listen to your skin and realize it is a reflection of more than beauty, she urges.ĚýĚý

One of the best ways to be resilient is to have a self-esteem that goes far beyond how you look, says Papadopoulos, who was commissioned by the British Home Office to write a series of recommendations for the government on the sexualization of children and teens. (Among her recommendations: put warning symbols on magazine spreads that feature photoshopped models, which help convince impressionable girls that praying mantis-skinny is normal.)ĚýĚý

Self-worth has to be built on factors other than good looks, she says. "It should be based on how funny you are, how smart, how well you play the cello."ĚýĚý

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Children who suffer cognitive impairment from multiple sclerosis (MS) are more likely to have less brain matter, according to a study by researchers from 91ŃÇÉ«, The Hospital for Sick Children, and McGill University.

Researchers found that cognitive impairment occurs in approximately 30 per cent of children and teens with MS; reduced processing speed is most commonly observed, even early in the disease process. These deficits can impact overall efficiency of cognitive networks and disrupt learning of new information, the study says.

“More significantly, we found the severity of cognitive dysfunction to be strongly correlated to a reduction in size in key brain regions, including the thalamus and corpus callosum, and less strongly influenced by inflammatory activity, as detected by lesion volume in the brain,” says the study’s lead author, Christine Till (right), assistant professor of psychology in the Ěýat 91ŃÇÉ«. “This suggests a link between cognitive impairment and the neurodegenerative component of MS, and highlights the important impact of the disease on deep grey matter structures and related neural networks,” she says.

Detailed neuropsychological evaluations and high-quality MRI scans were performed on 35 patients with pediatric onset MS who were recruited from the Pediatric Demyelinating Disease Clinic at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. Researchers compared their findings to results from healthy children, who were of similar age, sex and parental education level.

MRI results showed that children with MS have overall smaller brain volumes than expected for their age. Regional analysis taking into account differences in head size showed that the thalamus, a key brain structure involved in attention, arousal, and memory, was reduced by 11.9 per cent in the MS patients. The corpus callosum, which is the largest white matter tract in the brain and important for transmitting information between brain hemispheres, was reduced by five per cent.

“A key component of MS onset during childhood relates to its effect on the developing brain,” says Till. “Overall, our findings suggest that the young age of childhood-onset MS patients does not protect them from the negative impact of the disease. We know that the earlier a patient develops MS, the greater likelihood their language development will be negatively impacted,” she says.

Approximately 24 to 40 per cent of MS patients in the study showed impaired cognitive performance on measures of processing speed and visuomotor integration (e.g. copying designs). Impairments were also noted in complex attention (e.g. simultaneously attending to multiple stimuli), visual-spatial abilities, expressive language and executive functions such as shifting attention back and forth between two stimuli, planning and organizing. In addition, the children identified with global cognitive impairment tended to be male and to have the disease for a longer duration.

“Interestingly, physical disability did not correlate with cognitive impairment, suggesting that cognitive dysfunction can be present in the absence of physical disability,” Till says.

The current research is part of a three-year study investigating the long-term effects of MS on cognitive performance. Serial analyses of MRI scans are currently underway to examine whether cognitive decline reflects the progressive neurodegenerative aspect of MS in children and teens.

“MS is increasingly diagnosed in childhood, which makes the need to understand pediatric implications of the disease all the more pressing,” says Till. “We need to fully comprehend how the disease functions in its earliest stages in order to devise interventions that can help [pediatric patients].”

The paper, “MRI Correlates of Cognitive Impairment in Childhood-Onset Multiple Sclerosis”, was published in the journal Neuropsychology in May 2011. Researchers from the Hospital for Sick Children and the Montreal Neurological Institute contributed to this study, which was supported by the MS Society of Canada.

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