{"id":46805,"date":"2017-09-25T16:51:14","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T20:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=46805"},"modified":"2017-09-26T09:18:58","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T13:18:58","slug":"nserc-scholarship-winner-researching-mild-traumatic-brain-injuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2017\/09\/nserc-scholarship-winner-researching-mild-traumatic-brain-injuries\/","title":{"rendered":"NSERC scholarship winner researching mild traumatic brain injuries"},"content":{"rendered":"

A $50,000 per year NSERC scholarship will allow a Brock graduate student to continue her important research on people with mild traumatic brain injuries.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

When Caitlyn Gallant learned she had been selected to receive one of the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), she was elated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel honoured to be recognized as a Vanier scholar,\u201d says Gallant. \u201cIt is a wonderful recognition of the work I have put into academics, research and community service and inspires me to invest greater effort in my research and my community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scholarship will allow her to expand on the research she began as a master\u2019s student in Brock\u2019s Neuropsychology Cognitive Research Lab studying affective Theory of Mind in people with mild traumatic brain injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy research aims to understand the neural mechanisms that underlie Theory of Mind, defined as\u00a0the ability to understand others’ thoughts and emotions,\u201d says Gallant. \u201cDistinct brain regions have been implicated in understanding others\u2019 thoughts versus others\u2019 emotions; yet, the question of\u00a0how\u00a0these regions allow for the distinct ToM components remains unanswered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallant\u2019s PhD research will also include individuals on the Autism spectrum.<\/p>\n

\u201cResearch has demonstrated that these populations both show particular deficits in their ability to relate to others emotionally,\u201d she says. \u201cBoth groups also present with abnormal levels of baseline physiological arousal. I wondered if this could be the mechanism of impairment in these populations and if abnormal arousal levels underlie their deficits, then this would shed light on the mechanism of affective Theory of Mind in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

She hopes her research will help improve the understanding of this social cognitive process and help identify treatment strategies to remove barriers to social reintegration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inability to understand when your actions or words are upsetting or offensive to others can have huge social implications,\u201d Gallant says. \u201cIf my research supports the mechanism that I propose, then future research could explore methods of boosting physiological arousal to potentially influence social skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallant\u2019s supervisor says she is well deserving of the scholarship and recognition being an ambassador for academic research and its application, as well as being involved in many on and off-campus initiatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaitlyn continues to be a positive influence on those around her \u2014 students, friends and friends-to-be,\u201d said Dawn Good, Psychology Associate Professor.<\/p>\n

2017\/2018 NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship<\/strong><\/p>\n

NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship \u2013 Master\u2019s\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Nico Bonanno, Chemistry, \u201cDesign, synthesis and coordination chemistry of new redox\u00adactive ligands in molecule\u00adbased magnetism\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Kenig, Mathematics and Statistics, \u201cNew Methods for Quantile Regression\u201d<\/p>\n

Brent Pitchford, Psychology, \u201cExercising Self\u00adControl and its Effect on Global\/Local Attentional Processing\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenny Tieu, Mathematics & Statistics, \u201cOn Quantile Regression and Extreme Value Distributions\u201d<\/p>\n

NSERC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship<\/strong><\/p>\n

Caitlyn Gallant, Psychology, \u201cInvestigating physiological arousal as a mechanism for affective theory of mind\u201d<\/p>\n

NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship \u2013 Doctoral<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matthew Mallette, Applied Health Sciences, \u201cIntegrating mechanisms of central fatigue on neuromuscular function\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyndon Duff, Biological Sciences, \u201cForaging patterns of subordinate females in the eastern carpenter bees, Xylocopa virginica and the influence of nestmate chemical cues on foraging\u201d<\/p>\n

Nigel Kurgan, Applied Health Sciences, \u201cThe effect of exercise training on Wnt\/B-catenin signaling\u201d<\/p>\n

Phillip Wallace, Applied Health Sciences, \u201cThe Neurophysiological Responses Using Electroencephalography (EEG) During Self-Paced Exercise Performance in the Heat\u201d<\/p>\n

Holly Lockhart, Psychology, \u201cConnecting visual working memory of complex and simple objects\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A $50,000 per year NSERC scholarship will allow a Brock graduate student to continue her important research on people with mild traumatic brain injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":46806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3319,4052,188,55,1,4,5],"tags":[5817,3330],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}