RI-MUHC Annual Report

RI-MUHC ANNUAL REPORT 2021

YEAR IN REVIEW

BRAIN REPAIR AND INTEGRATIVE NEUROSCIENCE PROGRAM (BRaIN)

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

A partnership with Novartis fuels innovation

Robert Hess, PhD, Alexandre Reynaud, PhD, and Alexander Baldwin, PhD, collaborated with Novartis to develop digital brain therapies for patients who suffer from visual disorders, including amblyopia, or lazy eye. In 2020 Novartis acquired Amblyotech, a U.S. startup with intellectual property connected to the Hess lab. (See Business development activities)

Developing digital therapies: Robert Hess, PhD (centre), and research trainees

Contributing to the Mental Health Mission at the MUHC

Drs. Gabriella Gobbi and Howard Margolese were appointed research co-directors of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) Mental Health Mission in December 2020. The importance of understanding the causes of mental diseases and discovering new treatments has only been underscored by the pandemic.

Science advocacy: Parliament Hill Week

Charles Bourque, PhD, president of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience (CAN), advocated for funding for scientific research in Canada at the first virtual Parliament Hill Week in November 2020. Over 50 “neuroadvocates” from across Canada participated in more than 25 meetings with key members of parliament. Read the CAN Hill week one-pager.

Left to right: Drs. Howard Margolese and Gabriella Gobbi, research co-directors of the Mental Health Mission at the MUHC, and Charles Bourque, PhD, president of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience

Selected BRaIN Program news links

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Claire Gizowski, Charles W. Bourque. Sodium regulates clock time and output via an excitatory GABAergic pathway. Nature 583(7816): 421-424, 2020. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2471-x.

Sejal Davla, Gregory Artiushin, Yongjun Li, Daryan Chitsaz, Sally Li, Amita Sehgal, Donald J. van Meyel. Aanat1 functions in astrocytes to regulate sleep homeostasis. eLife 9: 1-48, 2020. doi: 10.7554/eLife.53994.

Priya Jhelum, Eva Santos-Nogueira, Wulin Teo, Alice Haumont, Isadora Lenoël, Peter K. Stys, Samuel David. Ferroptosis mediates cuprizone-induced loss of oligodendrocytes and demyelination. Journal of Neuroscience 40(48): 9327-9341, 2020. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1749-20.2020.

Luca Posa, Martha Graciela López-Canúl, Laura Rullo, Danilo De Gregorio, Sergio Domínguez-López, Matthew Kaba Aboud, Francesca Felicia Caputi, Sanzio Candeletti, Patrizia Romualdi, Gabriella Gobbi. Nociceptive responses in melatonin MT 2 receptor knockout mice compared to MT 1 and double MT 1 /MT 2 receptor knockout mice. Journal of Pineal Research 69(3): e12671, 2020. doi: 10.1111/jpi.12671.

Danilo De Gregorio, Jelena Popić, Justine P. Enns, Antonio Inserra, Agnieszka Skalecka, Athanasios Markopoulos, Luca Posa, Martha Graciela López-Canúl, He Qianzi, Christopher K. Lafferty, Jonathan P. Britt, Stefano Comai, Argel Aguilar- Valles, Nahum Sonenberg, Gabriella Gobbi. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) promotes social behavior through mTORC1 in the excitatory neurotransmission. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 118(5), 2021. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2020705118.

Yiran Chen, Reza Farivar. Natural scene representations in the gamma band are prototypical across subjects. NeuroImage 221: 117010, 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117010.

Zarah Moussavi, Grant Rutherford, Brian John Lithgow, Colleen P. Millikin, Mandana M. Modirrousta, Behzad Mansouri, Xikui Wang, Craig Omelan, Lesley K. Fellows, Paul B. Fitzgerald, Lisa M. Koski. Repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation for improving cognition in patients with Alzheimer disease: Protocol for a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. JMIR Research Protocols 10(1): e25144, 2021. doi: 10.2196/25144.

Bill Qi, Laura M. Fiori, Gustavo Turecki, Yannis J. Trakadis. Machine learning analysis of blood microRNA data in major depression: A case-control study for biomarker discovery. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology 23(8): 505-510, 2020. doi: 10.1093/ijnp/pyaa029.

Susan J. Bartlett, Elaine de León, Ana-Maria Maria Orbai, Uzma Jalal Haque, Rebecca L. Manno, Victoria Ruffing, Alessandra Butanis, Trisha Duncan, Michelle R. Jones, Amye L. Leong, Jamie Perin, Katherine Clegg Smith, Clifton O. Bingham. Patient-reported outcomes in RA care improve patient communication, decision-making, satisfaction and confidence: Qualitative results. Rheumatology (United Kingdom) 59(7): 1662-1670, 2020. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kez506.