Media releases

  • Leading surgeon to speak at Brock on the reality and myths about concussions

    MEDIA RELEASE: 18 April 2018 – R00079

    A world-renowned expert in concussions and spinal cord injuries will be speaking at Brock University on Thursday, April 19.

    Neurosurgeon Dr. Charles Tator will join a panel of Brock faculty members, students and alumni in providing an overview of the current state of concussions from a broad perspective. Included will be discussions on Ontario’s recently passed Rowan’s law, concussion safety legislation designed to protect amateur athletes and educate coaches about the dangers of head injuries.

    A prominent figure in the Canadian medical field, Tator was named to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2009 and is an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2017, he was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame for his work on preventing spinal injuries and concussions in sports.

    “Concussion reality and mythology are both expanding,” says Tator. “That is good and bad news. The good is that we now have greater prevention potential, such as concussion legislation, and greater knowledge of which treatments are effective. The bad is that there is more marketing going on than ever before for bogus, unproven remedies by inadequately trained ‘experts.’ Thus, it is more important now for all of us to continually update our knowledge of concussions.”

    Concussions — What Are They and What Can I Do? will feature speakers using their own research to explain key issues for parents, organizations, policy-makers, educators, practitioners, coaches and the general public.

    Panelists include:

    • Dr. Omar Khan (BSc ’98), MD FRCPC — Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (Brock alumnus, working with concussion patients through ODK Physical Medicine at Hotel Dieu Shaver’s Medical Clinic)
    • Hilary Findlay, PhD (Associate Professor, Sport Management— legalities around concussions for sport organizations)
    • Caitlyn Gallant (Brock University doctoral candidate — research focusing on the ability to understand others’ thoughts and emotions, Theory of Mind, among individuals with concussions/mild traumatic brain injuries)
    • Stephanie Cowle, Manager, Knowledge Translation, Parachute


    The event takes place Thursday, April 19, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Brock University’s Sean O’Sullivan Theatre.

    Part of the Lifespan Centre Speaker Series, the event is held in collaboration with Brock University’s Centre for Sport Capacity and Faculty of Applied Health Sciences.

    There is no cost to attend but advance registration is required and can be done through Eventbrite. 

    For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

    * Maryanne Firth, Writer/Editor, Brock University maryanne.firth@brocku.ca, 905-688- 5550 x4420 or 289-241-8288

    Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

    – 30 –

     

    Categories: Media releases

  • Talk the talk: Researchers discover link between gene variation and language

    MEDIA RELEASE: 17 April 2018 – R00078

    What shapes the basic features of a language?

    Brock University developmental psychologist Jan Frijters is part of an international, multi-disciplinary research team that found people whose mother tongue contains many consonants also carry a specific gene variation that helps them to distinguish a wide range of sounds.

    The team, led by Jeffrey Gruen at Yale University, examined DCDC2, a gene strongly associated with the brain’s capacity to process phonemes. A phoneme is a basic unit of sound that makes up words in a language, such as ‘p’ and ‘b’ in pit and bit. The number of phonemes varies from 20 to 60 per language. 

    The researchers examined the phonemes of languages spoken by 43 populations on five continents to see the extent to which genes play a role in subtle language differences.

    They concentrated on a component of the DCDC2 gene called READ1, which has been consistently linked to dyslexia. The researchers studied how READ1 mutated over a four million-year period in nonhuman primates, Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans, and found that a variation of READ1 called RU1-1 was associated with variations in the number of consonants in a language.

    There are more than 7,000 languages spoken globally, which are thought to have been shaped by migration, conquests and geographic isolation of populations, the researchers say.

    However, this new study suggests that genetic factors also play a role in changes in language.

    In determining this genetic connection, Frijters says the group — consisting of geneticists, a statistician, linguists, a pediatrician and a developmental psychologist — looked at three major characteristics of languages: tone, vowels and consonants.

    “Think of a brain that has a lower capacity to discriminate specific types of sounds,” says Frijters, an associate professor of Child and Youth Studies. “You need a language that has a small number of very distinct sounds or a low number of consonants.”

    In contrast, “a brain that can distinguish lots and lots of these types of sounds can handle a language that has very fine-grained distinctions between the consonants,” he says.

    “Of course, the amount of information that needs to be transmitted by every language is constant, because we are all human, so languages that have fewer consonants pick up the information load in other ways.”

    Some languages — especially those in Asian and African countries — are highly tonal, using many pitches and inflections. In Mandarin Chinese, for instance, the word ‘ma’ has several different meanings depending on the tone used to say the word.

    Languages also differ with the number of vowels, with high numbers in Estonian, Finnish and Danish.

    But the team found that only consonants are associated with genetic variations, specifically the RU1-1 allele group of READ1, says the study.

    “The brain uses distinct strategies to process and encode vowels and consonants, which are modified by dyslexia genes. Genetic variations of these genes, along with other cultural and linguistic processes, may account for differences in consonant use between populations,” the researchers conclude.

    Yale University’s Mellissa Demille is first author on the paper, “Worldwide distribution of the DCDC2 READ1 regulatory element and its relationship with phoneme variation across languages,” which was published April 16 in the journal PNAS. 

    For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

    * Maryanne Firth, Writer/Editor, Brock University maryanne.firth@brocku.ca, 905-688- 5550 x4420 or 289-241-8288

    Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

    – 30 –

    Categories: Media releases