Innes CRH, Poudel GR, Jones RD (2011). A paradoxical relationship between usual sleep efficiency and behavioural microsleep propensity following a single night of sleep restriction [Abstract]. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, 9(4), 238-239.

Jones RD (2011). Arousal-related lapse of responsiveness: Characteristics, detection, and underlying mechanisms [Abstract]. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, 9(4), 222.

Poudel GR, Innes CRH, Jones RD (2011). Cerebral blood flow after a night of sleep restriction measured using arterial spin labeling [Abstract]. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, 9(4), 411.

CONFERENCES

Sridhar Alla attended the National Multiple Sclerosis Society of New Zealand Field Workers Conference in Wellington, 21 November. Sridhar presented a talk titled ‘Research in Multiple Sclerosis – an update’.

Tim Anderson was an invited speaker at the XXth World Congress of Neurology, in Marrakesh, Morocco, November 12-17. Tim gave the following presentations:

‘Eye Movements and Neurodegenerative Diseases’ in the Neuroophthalmology Main Session.

‘What the eyes say about the brain: Diagnosing central disorders of eye movement’ in the Neuroophthalmology Teaching session.

Ramesh Kaipa attended the Annual Convention of the American, Speech, Language and Hearing to be held in San Diego, 17-19 November, 2011. Ramesh presented the following paper:

Kaipa R, Robb M, Jones R, Huckabee M-L. Application of motor learning principles in speech and nonspeech tasks.

EVENTS

The official announcement of the name change of the Van der Veer Institute to the New Zealand Brain Research Institute was made at an event at the Christchurch Netball Centre on Wednesday 2nd November. Institute supporters joined Specialists and others with a vested interest in the Institute’s clinical and research work, to hear confirmation of the change from Professor Ivan Donaldson.

GRANTS

Carrie Innes, Richard Jones, Govinda Poudel, Michael Hlavac, and Paul Kelly have been awarded a Canterbury Medical Research Foundation research grant of $73,877 for the project ‘Effect of obstructive sleep apnoea on microsleeps and cerebral blood flow’.

PUBLICITY

Article in AA Directions Summer 2011 by Dylan Thomsen on ‘Bad Dreams – The dangers of driver fatigue’ (Interview with Richard Jones regarding the Lapse Research Programme), p.46-47. (http://www.aa.co.nz/membership/aa-directions/driver/driver-fatigue/).

To reflect its wider role, in November 2011, the organisation became the New Zealand Brain Research Institute (www.nzbri.org). The new name is intended to be more descriptive of what we do, and reflects the ambition to become a national centre of excellence for human-level brain research. The Van der Veer name will continue to be associated with our neurological clinics.

Three appointments have been made for the NZBRI. Tim Anderson has been appointed as Clinical Director, Michael MacAskill has been appointed as Research Director, and Tracy Melzer has been appointed as MRI Research Manager.

To support the activities of the NZBRI, the ‘Friends of the Brain Institute’ was also launched publicly this month (joinTheFBI.org). The FBI aim to involve community members to promote awareness of the Institute and to raise funds to support its research.

CONFERENCES

Sridhar Alla attended the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Annual general meeting in Wellington, 19 October. Sridhar presented a talk titled ‘Incidence and risk factors of multiple sclerosis’.

Sridhar Alla attended the Progress in Multiple Sclerosis Research annual research meeting in Melbourne, Australia, 26-28 October. He met international collaborators on the ‘Incidence of Multiple Sclerosis project’ being run at the Institute and negotiated with two other leading researchers from Australia to be the part of the research project.

Richard Jones, Carrie Innes, and Govinda Poudel attended Worldsleep2011: The 6th World Congress of the World Sleep Federation, in Kyoto, Japan 16-20th October. They gave the following presentations:

Innes CRH, Poudel GR, Jones RD (2011). A paradoxical relationship between usual sleep efficiency and behavioural microsleep propensity following a single night of sleep restriction.

Jones RD (2011). Arousal-related lapse of responsiveness: Characteristics, detection, and underlying mechanisms.

Poudel GR, Innes CRH, Jones RD (2011). Cerebral blood flow after a night of sleep restriction measured using arterial spin labeling.

Toni Pitcher attended two MRI workshops in Boston, USA:
‘SPM8 for Basic and Clinical Investigators’, 10-14th October.
‘Functional MRI in Clinical Research and Practice’, 17-21st October.

GRANTS

Eric Espiner, Tim Anderson, John Dalrymple-Alford and Tim Prickett have been awarded a Michael J Fox Foundation DATATOP program grant of US$81,006 for the project ‘C-type Natriuretic Peptide (CNP): a putative biomarker of neuronal damage in Parkinson’s Disease’.

Tim Anderson, Martin Kennedy, and Toni Pitcher have been successful in receiving a University of Otago Research Grant of $30,564 over 1 year for the project ‘Parkinson’s disease genetics, cognitive impairment, and cerebral blood flow’.

APPOINTMENTS

John Dalrymple-Alford and Richard Jones have been selected for the Health Research Council BioMedical Assessment Committee for assessment of the ‘Expressions of Interest’ stage of the HRC Project grant applications.

Hoggarth P, Innes C, Dalrymple-Alford J, Croucher M, Severinsen J, Gray J, Hampton J, Oxley J, Brook B, Abernethy P, Jones R (2011). Assessment of older drivers in New Zealand: the current system, research, and recommendations. Australasian Journal of Ageing. 30:148-155.

Innes CRH, Lee D, Chen C, Ponder-Sutton AM, Melzer TR, Jones RD (2011). Do complex models increase prediction of complex behaviours? Predicting driving ability in people with brain disorders. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64(9), 1714-1725.

Macrae PR, Doeltgen SH, Jones RD, Huckabee M-L (in press). Intra- and inter-rater reliability for analysis of hyoid displacement captured by ultrasound. Journal of Clinical Ultrasound.

CONFERENCES

Tim Anderson attended the Neuro-Ophthalmology Society of Australia (NOSA) Annual Scientific Meeting, in Adelaide, Australia, 8–9 September. Tim co-chaired the ‘Retrochiasmal disrders and beyond’ session.

Tim Anderson attended the NeuroVision Training Weekend in Neuro-Ophthalmology in Adelaide, Australia, 10–11 September. Tim gave a lecture titled ‘Retro-chiasmal Disorders’.

Tim Anderson attended the World Congress on Huntington Disease in Melbourne, Australia, 11–14 September. Tim chaired the ‘Late Breaking Papers’ session.

Tim Anderson attended ‘Movement Disorders Made Easy and Exciting’ in Mumbai, India, 20–21 September. Tim was a member of the International Faculty and undertook the following presentations:

(i) Botulinum Toxin Workshop for Movement Disorders
(ii) How to examine eye movements at bedside – Video Teaching session
(iii) Eye movement abnormalities in movement disorders
(iv) Interesting eye movement abnormalities – Video Teaching session

Richard Jones and Carrie Innes attended the NZAA Research Foundation Inaugural Research Symposium ‘Staying focused at the wheel: Driver inattention, distraction and fatigue’ in Wellington, 5–6 September. The following papers were presented:

Jones RD. Microsleeps: What are they? Are they dangerous? Are they preventable? (Keynote address)

Innes CRH, Poudel GR, Jones RJ. High rates of microsleeps: A simple case of sleep deficiency?

Innes CRH, Hoggarth PA, Dalrymple-Alford JC, Jones RJ. Healthy older drivers: What is the evidence for increased risk of accidents?
Richard Jones attended the 33rd International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC 2011), 30 Aug – 3 Sep 2011, in Boston, USA. Richard was Theme Editor and member of the EMBS Conference Editorial Board with primary responsibility for peer review of 440 papers in the Neural & Rehabilitation Engineering Theme. Richard was also Track Chair for two tracks: Neurological disorders and Human performance. Richard was the New Zealand representative on the International Program Committee and chaired 2 sessions at the conference.

AWARDS

Aamir Al-Toubi participated in the ‘PhD in 3’ competition at the University of Canterbury and won the first place prize of $5000 to be spent on academic related expenses.

APPOINTMENTS

Richard Jones has been promoted from associate to full Professor in his adjunct academic appointment in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Canterbury.

Richard Jones has been appointed to the Biomedical Sciences Assessing Committee of the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

Robb MP, Sinton-White H, Kaipa R (in press). Acoustic estimates of respiration in the pain cries of newborns. International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology.

CONFERENCES

Saskia van Stockum attended the Gordon Research Conference on Eye Movements at the University of New England, Biddeford, Maine, July 31 – August 5, 2011. Saskia presented the following paper:

van Stockum S, MacAskill MR, Myall D, Anderson TJ (2011). A discrimination task reveals abnormal facilitation of the saccade system in Parkinson’s disease.

Nadia Borlase, Simon Donaldson, Hannah Farr, Simon Feng, Tracy Melzer, and Eng Ann Toh attended the Australasian Winter Conference on Brain Research in Queenstown, 27 – 31 August. The following papers were presented:

Borlase N, Melzer T, Watts R, Livingston LL, Graham C, Pitcher T, MacAskill MR, Keenan R, Anderson TJ, Dalrymple-Alford JC. Thalamic Degeneration: Using DTI imaging to quantify cognitive subtypes in Parkinson’s disease.

Donaldson SP, Dalrymple-Alford JC, Jones AJ, Wang Y, Livingston L, Wilkinson T, Watts R, Porter RJ, Maclagan M, McAuliffe M, Anderson TJ. Canterbury Mild Cognitive Impairment Study: Influence of Different Criteria.

Farr F, David T. Models of Neurovascular Coupling – A Tale of Two (Billion or So) Astrocytes.

Feng SD, MacAskill MR, Pitcher TL, Melzer TR, Graham C, Watts R, Anderson TJ. Correlations between ASL blood flow MRI and eye movement abnormalities in Parkinson’s disease.

Melzer TR, Watts R, MacAskill MR, Pitcher T, Keenan R, Livingston L, Dalrymple-Alford JC, Anderson TJ. Decreasing structural integrity with cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease.

Toh EA, MacAskill MR, Dalrymple-Alford JC, Myall DJ, Livingston L, Ross J, Anderson TJ. Eye-hand coordination and relationship to cognition in Huntington’s disease.

PEOPLE AT VDVI

Dr Sridhar Alla has joined the research team at the Van der Veer Institute and the School of Medicine, University of Otago, Christchurch, as a Research Fellow to work on a national level project titled ‘Incidence of Multiple Sclerosis in New Zealand’. Sridhar will be working as part of the newly formed ‘Multiple Sclerosis research group’ with Deborah Mason, Tim Anderson, and a number of national and international collaborators on this project. His position is funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Sridhar’s PhD thesis, conducted at the University of Otago, Dunedin, investigated the international consensus document addressing assessment and management issues following a sports concussion. He worked on Mobility Scooter and Laterality research projects at the School of Physiotherapy in Dunedin prior to commencing his current position. He has experience in treating patients with a number of neurological conditions as a physiotherapist in India, and conducted a master’s level project on gait rehabilitation using treadmill training of patients with stroke.

Jeremy Goh is completing his MSc through the Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury. His project is titled ‘Parkinson’s disease – structural integrity of four cognitive networks’ and will be supervised by John-Dalrymple Alford, Tim Anderson, Tracy Melzer, and Michael McAskill.

Sophie Grenfell is completing her MSc through the Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury. Her project will be supervised by John Dalrymple-Alford and will investigate the enrichment of autobiographical memory and measure linguistic features in people with dementia.

Ann Jones is completing her Masters degree through the Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury. Ann’s project will be supervised by John Dalrymple-Alford and investigate the effect of a cognitive enrichment programme on those close to a person with dementia. Previously, Ann has worked as a radiographer for the Christchurch Radiology Group, but returned to university when her children began attending and developed an interest in neuropsychology. She hopes to work as a clinician, perhaps in an area related to her research.

How Hui Teng is completing her Master of Science (MSc) in Speech and Language Sciences through the Department of Communication Disorders, University of Canterbury. How’s project will be supervised by Maggie-Lee Huckabee and is titled ‘The presence of oral pathogens and cough reflex sensitivity’. How is from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and has been working for the past 7 years before deciding to pursue postgraduate studies. How is funded by The Ministry of Health, Malaysia.

Farr H, David T (in press). Models of neurovascular coupling via potassium and EET signalling. Journal of Theoretical Biology.

Melzer TR, Watts R, MacAskill MR, Pitcher TL, Livingston L, Keenan R, Dalrymple-Alford JC, Anderson TJ (in press). Grey matter atrophy in cognitively impaired Parkinson’s disease. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry.

CONFERENCES

Petra Hoggarth attended the 6th International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment, Training and Vehicle Design in Lake Tahoe, California, June 27–30, 2011. Petra presented the following papers:

Hoggarth PA, Innes CRH, Jones RD, Dalrymple-Alford JC (2011). ‘Self-rated distress related to medical conditions is associated with future crashes or traffic offences in older drivers’.

Hoggarth PA, Innes CRH, Jones RD, Dalrymple-Alford JC (2011). ‘On-road driving assessment errors associated with pass and fail outcomes for older drivers with cognitive impairment’.

Petra Hoggarth and Carrie Innes attended a meeting of representatives of the Ministry of Transport and New Zealand Transport Agency in Wellington, 28th July. Petra presented the following talk based on the findings of the three studies conducted for her PhD:

Hoggarth PA, Jones RD, Innes CRH, Dalrymple-Alford JC. ‘Older drivers in New Zealand: current research and recommendations’.

Tracy Melzer attended the 17th Annual meeting of the organization on Human Brain Mapping in Quebec City, Canada 26–30th June. Tracy presented the following paper:

Melzer TR, Watts R, MacAskill1 MR, Pitcher T, Keenan R, Livingston L, Dalrymple-Alford JC, Anderson TJ (2011). ‘White matter tract integrity and cognition in Parkinson’s disease’.

Tim Anderson attended the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists (ANZAN) in Hobart, 16 – 20 May 2011. Tim presented the following paper in the Neuro-Ophthalmology Symposium:

Anderson TJ (2011). Supranuclear eye movement disorders.

Hannah Farr attended Brain 2011 (25th International Symposium on Cerebral Blood Flow, Metabolism and Function), 25th-29th May in Barcelona Spain and presented the following paper:

Farr H, David T (2011). Potassium- and EET- mediated functional hyperemia: a mathematical model.

Tracy Melzer gave a presentation to the Otago Institute titled ‘Brain Imaging in Parkinson’s Disease: Grey matter atrophy and reduced blood flow with cognitive impairment’.

Govinda Poudel attended the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action Workshop ‘Advanced methods for the estimation of human brain activity and connectivity’ (NeuroMath) in Rome, Italy, 20-21st May. Govinda also spent two days in the laboratory of collaborator Fabio Babiloni at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. Govinda presented the following paper:

Poudel GR, Jones RD, Innes CRH, Watts R, Signal L, Bones P (2011). The struggle to stay awake: Functional neuroimaging of behavioural microsleeps.

Richard Watts attended the 19th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Montreal, Canada, 7-13 May and presented the following paper:

Melzer TR, Watts R, MacAskill MR, Keenan R, Shankaranarayanan A, Alsop DC, Livingston L, Dalrymple-Alford JC, Anderson TJ (2011). Perfusion deficits predate grey matter atrophy in cognitively-impaired Parkinson’s disease.

EVENTS

The Van der Veer Institute will be holding its second annual Brain Research Symposium on Friday 30 September. This will be an all-day event at which researchers and local clinicians will share their latest findings and questions. The organising committee will be led by Tracy Melzer.

GRANTS

Tracy Melzer was awarded a travel grant of $1000 from the Otago Institute to attend their meeting and present his research.

Hannah Farr was awarded travel grants from the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation ($1000), Canterbury Branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand Inc ($1000), and the Federation of Graduate Women (Canterbury Branch) ($600) in order to attend Brain 2011 in Barcelona, Spain.

PEOPLE AT VDVI

Tracy Melzer’s thesis titled ‘Magnetic resonance imaging of cognition in Parkinson’s disease’ has been accepted for the award of a PhD. Tracy will be remaining at the Institute as a University of Otago Postdoctoral Fellow.

Professor Tim Anderson attended the 3rd Asian and Oceanian Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Congress (AOPMC) 25–27 March 2011, in Taipei, Taiwan. Tim Chaired the session ‘Modern concepts in non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

AWARDS

Ramesh Kaipa was awarded the annual Research Excellence Award of $500 by the New Zealand Speech-language Therapists’ Association for his PhD project titled ‘Effect of Principles of Motor Learning on Speech and Nonspeech Motor Learning’.

PEOPLE AT VDVI

Ruvini Athukorala from the Department of Communication Disorders, University of Canterbury joined the Institute to complete her MSc research project, titled ‘Skill training for swallowing rehabilitation in individuals with Parkinson’s disease’. Ruvini’s project will be supervised by Maggie-Lee Huckabee and Richard Jones. Prior to coming to New Zealand, Ruvini worked as a Speech language therapist and Audiologist for 2½ years in Sri Lanka and as a Lecturer in Audiology at the University of Kelaniya Medical Faculty. Ruvini has been working with intellectually disabled children with communication disorders in Auckland for the past 1½ years.

Sarah Davies from the Department of Communication Disorders, University of Canterbury joined the Institute to complete her MSc research project, titled ‘The effects of a jaw-opening exercise on suprahyoid muscles and hyoid movement during swallowing in healthy adults’. Sarah’s project will be supervised by Maggie-Lee Huckabee and Gina Tillard and is funded by a UC Master’s Scholarship.

Andrew Nicholas from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Canterbury joined the Institute part-time to complete his final year project, titled ‘An electrical-impedance biofeedback instrument for swallowing rehabilitation’. Andrew’s project will be supervised by Richard Jones, Maggie-Lee Huckabee, and Paul Gaynor.

Eng Ann Toh is taking a year out from his medical training to complete a BMedSc (Hons) project through the Department of Medicine, University of Otago, Christchurch. His project is titled ‘Eye-hand coordination and relationship to cognition in Huntington’s disease’ and will be supervised by Tim Anderson, John Dalrymple-Alford, Michael MacAskill, and Daniel Myall. Eng will be funded by a McGee Fellowship (University of Otago, Christchurch).

van Stockum S, MacAskill MR, Myall D, Anderson TJ (in press). A perceptual discrimination task abnormally facilitates reflexive saccades in Parkinson’s disease. European Journal of Neuroscience. Special Issue ‘Saccade, Search and Orient’ to be published in 2011.

MacAskill MR, Koga K, Anderson TJ (2011). Japanese street performer mimes violation of Hering’s Law. Neurology, 76, 1186-1187. doi:10.1212/WNL.0b013e318212a8ec

EVENTS

This year’s Athol Mann lecture for the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation will be given by Prof David Miller of the Institute of Neurology, University College London, titled ‘Changing perspectives in the treatment of multiple sclerosis’

Prof Miller is a world-renowned expert on multiple sclerosis, particularly in the way in which MRI techniques can be used to study the disease. He is visiting to collaborate with local researchers at the Van der Veer Institute.

Date: Tuesday 19 April
Time: 5:30 p.m
Venue: NZ Chinese Association Hall,
22 St Asaph Street (Hagley Park end, next to Canterbury Medical Research Foundation)
Refreshments provided.

GRANTS

Nadia Borlase has received the Todd Foundation Award for Excellence. The Todd Foundation is an organisation which provides funding to those who are aiming to change lives for the better. The award will provide $11,500 towards Nadia’s personal research costs.

PEOPLE AT VDVI

Simon Knopp commenced his PhD studies through the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Canterbury. His project is titled ‘Development of a head-mounted multi-modal device for lapse and drowsiness detection’ and will be supervised by Richard Jones, Phil Bones, Govinda Poudel, and Carrie Innes. Simon will be funded by a University of Canterbury Doctoral Scholarship and a Christchurch Neurotechnology Research Programme award.

Abdul Wahab N, Jones RD, Huckabee M-L (2011). Effects of olfactory and gustatory stimuli on the biomechanics of swallowing. Physiology & Behavior, 102: 485-490.

Melzer TR, Watts R, MacAskill MR, Pearson JF, Rüeger, S, Pitcher T, Livingston L, Graham C, Keenan R, Shankaranarayanan A, Alsop DC, Dalrymple-Alford JC, Anderson TJ. (2001). Arterial spin labeling reveals an abnormal cerebral perfusion pattern in Parkinson’s disease. Brain, 134(3):845-855.

Peiris MTR, Davidson PR, Bones PJ, Jones RD (2011). Detection of lapses in responsiveness from the EEG. Journal of Neural Engineering, 8(1-016003):1-15.

CONFERENCES

Tim Anderson was an invited speaker at the 10th Anniversary Parkinson’s Disease Symposium, in Takamatsu, Japan, 11–13 February 2011. Tim’s presented the following talk:

“Dopamine dysregulation Syndrome”