Shaking up brain science
Donald Stuss and the team at the Rotman Research Institute are catching the world’s attention.
In a quiet corner of Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in North Toronto, a unique team is winning international acclaim in brain research.
The team makes up the Rotman Research Institute (RRI). In just over a decade, it has gained fame as one of the world’s key centres of innovation in understanding the mysteries of the brain.
The Rotman team is the subject of media coverage regularly. The Discovery Channel, for example, set up shop for a week in March at the RRI, as it put on an international conference focusing on the “frontal lobes” – a part of the brain RRI researchers have been instrumental in identifying as essential to being human.
Other universities are also impressed. Stanford University and University College in London, England have consulted with the RRI to see how they might model themselves after the institute.
At the centre of it all is Dr. Donald Stuss, a modest, affable, 59-year-old psychologist who had a distinguished career at the University of Ottawa when a team from the University of Toronto and Baycrest approached him in 1988 to start a research centre that would focus on aging.
“I was happy in Ottawa, but this idea intrigued me,” says Stuss, who is a recognized authority on the frontal lobes. “I thought that with the right approach we could really shake up the concept of brain science, which is essential to understanding the aging process.”
The approach he developed was based on three key themes:
Select a focus. “We decided to focus on the frontal lobes and memory because of their connection to aging and because we had people who were making great advances in these areas,” says Stuss.
Recruit the best people possible. “Our team is small, but each person on it is someone you would hate to lose.”
Work in a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional environment. “Mixing disciplines produces results. We have psychologists working with neurologists, and psychiatrists with engineers, at Rotman and throughout U of T and the Toronto teaching hospitals. We are also building an international network. For example, our best rehabilitation
scientist is Dr. Ian Robertson, who is chief of psychology at Dublin University.”
Building on this formula, Stuss operates on a central principle. “Each person who comes to the team has to add value. For example, we have a lot who work in the memory area, but each follows a distinct path. So we’ve blurred the lines between disciplines, but we’ve also sharpened the lines of expertise.”
And these “lines of expertise” are proving fruitful. The RRI is making advances that are garnering worldwide attention.
Psychologist Dr. Endel Tulving, a Killam Prize winner and one of the great innovators in memory research, has proven that memory is a two-stage process: memories are laid down (or “encoded”) in one part of the brain and retrieved by another.
Psychologist Dr. Fergus Craik, recently also awarded a Killam Prize (see page 12), is renowned for his work in how the brain encodes information into the memory and how this process can weaken with age.
Neurologist Dr. Helen Mayberg, an expert on the biological underpinnings of depression, has shown that key connections between the frontal lobes and the limbic system (a part of the brain that is concerned with emotion and motivation) are essential in the processing of emotions. This important information can be used to understand and treat depression.
Psychologists Dr. Randy McIntosh and Dr. Cheryl Grady have shown that young and old people use different parts of their brains to accomplish identical tasks. Theirs was the first such study to focus on how the interplay of brain regions relates to cognitive functioning and aging.
Dr. Prathiba Shammi worked with Stuss to show the connection between the frontal lobes and our ability to appreciate different kinds of humour.
Neurologist Dr. Sandra Black has mapped brain loss in Alzheimer’s disease and found that lifelong mental activity (inferred from educational level) may delay its onset.
Psychiatrist Dr. Shitij Kapur has shown how delusions and hallucinations accompanying depression, schizophrenia and dementia can be decreased with lower than normal doses of medications.
Psychologists Dr. Gordon Winocur and Dr. Morris Moscovitch are investigating “remote” memory (e.g., memories of an individual’s childhood) in humans and animals and were the first ever to publish a paper on the effects of frontal lesions
(for example, the damage caused by a stroke) on retrieval of remote memory in rats.
Neurologist Dr. Terence Picton specializes in how the brain generates electrical activity during perception and cognition. He is currently developing electrical procedures to evaluate the mental deterioration that occurs with aging and dementia.
Psychologist Dr. Claude Alain is studying how we distinguish between the cacophony of sounds around us, to determine where in the brain age-related changes in auditory perception occur.
Neurologist Dr. Morris Freedman is conducting research aimed at improving our understanding of the mechanisms underlying cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Psychologist Dr. Brian Levine is studying how the ability to make certain types of decisions and choices is affected by brain damage.
Medical physicist Dr. Simon Graham is making significant progress in applying fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) technology to analyze learning, aging and memory.
Psychologist Dr. Lynn Hasher is a pioneer in researching how time of day affects brain functioning levels – particularly in memory and attention – in younger and older adults.
As accomplished as the team has been, colleagues point to Stuss’s leadership as the core of the institute’s success.
Helen Mayberg calls Stuss “the quintessential leader.” Fergus Craik was a member of the team that searched for the RRI’s founding director. “We saw a lot of really high-calibre people. But when we met Don, he had this combination of intelligence, charisma and enthusiasm that couldn’t be matched. ”
But to Stuss, the real story is the integrated team approach. “We’ve learned that when you can work without territoriality, you can make huge leaps forward. We concentrate on science, not on who-reports-to-whom.”
To enhance the science, Stuss created the Kunin-Lunenfeld Applied Research Unit (KLARU), which “fleshes out our program in a bench-to-bedside manner.” Stuss recruited Dr. David Streiner, a leading psychologist and epidemiologist from McMaster University, as director of KLARU.
Stuss is also spearheading the Functional Imaging Research Network (FIRN), a $31 million project (which includes major support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust) that will create a world-class imaging network between Baycrest/RRI, U of T, the Hospital for Sick Children, the University Health Network, and Sunnybrook & Women’s College Health Sciences Centre.
“Using imaging technology is like making a movie of the mind,” adds Stuss.”It is essential to the basic science that must be understood before designing clinical applications.”
His next steps? “We’re really only getting started. The brain is still one of medicine’s great mysteries. But every day, we know something about it we didn’t know the day before. So come and see me in five years and it will be a whole new story.”