An unexpected result discovered by neuroscientists at Western University won’t prevent the formation and growth of Alzheimer’s disease but it potentially rules out a major potential treatment focus that drug manufacturers – and researchers around the world – have been...
Research & Innovation
How family physicians are paid is linked to their rate of referral to specialists
Researchers at Western University, University of Ottawa and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) show that family physicians who switched from a blended fee-for-service payment scheme to a blended capitation model (a fixed rate per patient per year)...
Western-led research team uncovers lost images from the 19th century using 21st century tech
Art curators will be able to recover images on daguerreotypes, the earliest form of photography that used silver plates, after a team of scientists led by Western University learned how to use light to see through degradation that has occurred over time. Research...
Researchers map brain of blind patient who can see motion
Neuroscientists at Western University’s Brain and Mind Institute, have confirmed and detailed a rare case of a blind woman able to see objects – but only if in motion. A team led by neuropsychologist Jody Culham has conducted the most extensive analysis and brain...
Research shows if your eyes wrinkle when you smile or frown, you appear more sincere
Researchers at Western University have shown that our brains are pre-wired to perceive wrinkles around the eyes as conveying more intense and more sincere emotions. This eye-wrinkle feature, called the Duchenne marker, occurs across multiple facial expressions,...
Micro-CT scans show 2,100-year-old ‘hawk’ mummy a stillborn baby
A tiny Egyptian mummy long believed to be that of a hawk is actually a rare example of a near-to-term, severely malformed fetus, says an examination led by mummy expert Andrew Nelson of Western University. Detailed micro-CT scans have virtually unwrapped the mummy to...
400 million year-old evolutionary arms race helps researchers understand HIV
Understanding the evolution of a 400 million-year-old anti-viral protein that first emerged in marine life, is helping researchers get the upper-hand on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Researchers at Western University were interested in the origin of a gene that...
Western’s Vladimir Hachinski wins 2018 Killam Prize
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvxHDXD4Tnw Western University’s Vladimir Hachinski – past president of the World Federation of Neurology and a world-renowned stroke expert – is a 2018 Killam Prize winner for health sciences. The Canada Council for the Arts announced...
Many Ontario schools failing students who have an intellectual disability: report
Despite recent developments in human rights and education law, as well as a shift in special education delivery and efforts to make schools more inclusive, public education in elementary and secondary schools is failing many students who have intellectual...
Researchers find gut microbiome plays an important role in atherosclerosis
Researchers at Western University and Lawson Health Research Institute have shown a novel relationship between the intestinal microbiome and atherosclerosis, one of the major causes of heart attack and stroke. This was measured as the burden of plaque in the carotid...
ExoMars returns first images from new orbit; Western’s Livio L. Tornabene makes major impact
The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has returned the first images of the Red Planet from its new orbit. The orbiter's Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS, took this stunning image, which features part of an impact crater, during the instrument's test period....
How the brain is folded provides researchers with an accurate marker to predict psychosis in high-risk patients
By using images of the brain to look at how its outer surface is folded on itself, researchers can predict which high-risk patients will develop psychosis with more than 80 per cent accuracy. Before now, there has been no way to examine young people before they...