News and events

Dr. Haley Vecchiarelli (Tremblay Lab) recently received a 2024 Graduate and Fellowship Research Award in Women’s Health from the Women’s Health Research Institute for her research on long COVID. She is investigating how microglia could potentially contribute to the female bias in long COVID neurological symptoms.

In a new preclinical study published in iScience, PhD candidate Micaël Carrier (Tremblay Lab) and his co-authors found white blood cells can enter the brain at birth and contribute to the development of brain circuitry.

Brain injury survivors show cognitive improvement after using NeuroTracker, but we don’t really understand why. Master’s student Jamie Morrison (Christie lab) is using her recent Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to study what could be underlying this success. This research could lead to more recovery options, especially for those navigating the complexities of moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries.

Dr. Jenessa Johnston (Caruncho / Kalynchuk lab) received one of the two Governor General’s Gold Medals awarded at UVic in 2024 for her outstanding dissertation. Her work, which combined patient-oriented and basic science research, focused on the role of reelin in depression.

Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Ifeoluwa (Hiphy) Awogbindin (Tremblay Lab) has received a Michael Smith Health Research British Columbia Research Trainee Award. Jointly funded by the Parkinson’s Society British Columbia, the award will support Hiphy’s investigation of the relationship between SARS-CoV-2 infection / COVID-19, microglia, and Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Leigh Anne Swayne received a Proof-of-Concept Grant co-funded by Alzheimer Society of Canada and Brain Canada. With this funding, Dr. Swayne and master’s student Adriana Casillas Martinez will study how nerve cell connections are formed and how they could be preserved in Alzheimer’s disease.

In a new preclinical study published in Brain Behavior and Immunity, PhD candidate Micaël Carrier (Tremblay Lab) and co-authors used models to look at how genetic and environmental factors affecting a pregnant person can impact the mental health of their male and female offspring.

Dr. Leigh Anne Swayne received a Project Grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to study how nerve cell connections are stabilized. This important work will help us understand the molecular processes involved in wiring the brain. Since impaired nerve connection stability is common to several neurological conditions, ranging from chronic stress and depression to schizophrenia, the outcomes of this research could also shed light on how these conditions arise and how they might be treated.

Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Adriano Chaves (they/them; Tremblay Lab) received a 2023 Graduate and Fellowship Research Award in Women’s Health at the Postdoctoral Level from the Women’s Health Research Institute (WHRI). They will investigate the role of microglia in remodelling the extracellular matrix, with a specific focus on how this could affect synaptic plasticity and emotional and cognitive behaviour in female models.

In an invited article published in the Annual Review of Genetics, postdoctoral fellow Dr. Haley Vecchiarelli (Tremblay Lab) and Dr. Marie-Ève Tremblay highlight the current state of the field and describe advancements from recent studies. This is one of several review activities undertaken by the Tremblay Lab this year.

In her first-author paper published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation, Katie Neale (Christie Lab) and fellow lab members investigated the effects of repeated mild traumatic brain injuries on neurological function and cellular proliferation in male and female juvenile models.

The Neuroscience Graduate Student Association will use donated funds to provide invaluable learning and social opportunities for its members.

First author and PhD candidate Fernando González Ibáñez (Tremblay Lab), along with fellow Tremblay Lab members, recently published new research showing a ketogenic diet promotes resistance to stress by changing brain lipids and improving microglial health.

Post-doctoral fellow Dr. Haley Vecchiarelli (Tremblay Lab) received a 2023 Brain Canada Rising Stars Trainee Award for her work focusing on how cannabis exposure alters microglia.

Charlotte Copas (Nahirney Lab), Elisa Gonçalves de Andrade (Tremblay Lab), Irene Shkolnikov (Christie Lab), Kaylene Scheil (Caruncho/Kalynchuk Lab) and Patrick Montgomery (Krigolson Lab) recently defended their MSc theses.

Drs. Carla Liria Sánchez-Lafuente (Caruncho / Kalynchuk Lab), Erin Gräfe (Christie Lab), and Hannah Reid (Christie Lab) recently defended their dissertations to earn their PhDs.

PhD student Nicole York (Swayne and Arbour Labs) was named a Vanier Scholar for her research investigating the role of ankyrin-B (ANKB) in heart muscle cell differentiation. This could provide insight into how a variant of ANKB contributes to cardiac conditions prevalent in the Gitxsan First Nations community.

Master’s student Haifei You (Swayne Lab) has received a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to study the molecular mechanisms underlying pannexin 1 movement in neural cells.

By tracking the movements of individual microglia in mature brains, Dr. Craig Brown, former post-doctoral fellow and first author Roobina Boghozian, and other members of the Brown Lab (Sorabh Sharma, Kamal Narayan, and Manjinder Cheema) have discovered that these movements and their molecular regulation show striking differences depending on the sex of the subject. They describe their findings in a paper recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Master’s student Justin Brand (Christie Lab; co-supervised by Dr. Sandy Shultz) received a Canadian Graduate Student – Master’s award to study the links between traumatic brain injury, intimate partner violence, and stress.

Master’s student Justin Brand (Christie Lab; co-supervised by Dr. Sandy Shultz) recently published a review on the bi-directional relationship between stress and traumatic brain injury in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.

PhD candidate Jared VanderZwaag and master’s students Colin Murray and Sophia Loewen (all Tremblay Lab) have received Canadian Graduate Scholarships from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for their respective brain health research.

Dr. Craig Brown and his team have developed a simple approach to precisely deliver adeno-associated viruses in brain imaging experiments. They describe this new method in a paper published in Cell Reports Methods.

PhD candidate Taylor Snowden-Richardson (Christie Lab) is helping The Brain Changes Initiative, a non-profit organization that has helped fund her research, with its Canada-wide event to promote the benefits of exercise on the brain.

In a new perspective article published in Nature Communications, first-author and MSc student Victor Lau (Tremblay Lab) proposes that the progression of Alzheimer’s disease must involve maladaptive, senescent cell buildup.

As a new ambassador of the International Society for Neurochemistry’s Young Scientist Steering Committee, PhD candidate Fernando González Ibáñez (Tremblay Lab) will spend the next year organizing events to create a network of young scientists in the neurochemistry field.

Dr. Leigh Anne Swayne and Dr. Hector Caruncho each received $100,000 in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to continue their respective research projects.

Dr. Marie-Ève Tremblay received the Silver Medal for Excellence in Research.

Following two years of successful patient-focused research by PhD candidate Taylor Snowden-Richardson and other members of the Christie Lab, the Victoria Brain Injury Society instituted a permanent Neurotracker program for its clients. Undergraduate student Jamie Morrison will use a BranchOut Neurological Foundation grant to study the program implementation.

Three PhD students and two MSc students graduated from the Neuroscience Graduate Program in the 2019/2020 academic year. Read on to meet Cristina, Juan, Bridget, Mohammad, and Ben and to learn more about their theses and dissertations.

On April 16, 2020, Juan Sanchez-Arias (Division of Medical Sciences, Neuroscience Graduate Program) will defend his PhD dissertation. He will address his examining committee remotely due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.

MEDS 433 Teaching Assistant (Winter 2021)

Ben Schager published his first article in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, titled “Susceptibility to capillary plugging can predict brain region specific vessel loss with aging,” and defended his M.Sc. thesis in the same week.