Researchers find brain's default network shrinks in healthy aging and dementia

Researchers at York University and Cornell University have found the brain’s default network, a collection of brain regions thought to be involved in cognitive functions such as memory, declines in volume with both normal aging and in Alzheimer’s disease. These new findings suggest that structural changes in this collection of brain regions may be critical […]

Legendary quarterback Matt Dunigan gives keynote at concussion symposium

Legendary quarterback Matt Dunigan will give the keynote address at a symposium on sport concussion at York next Monday. Blow by Blow: The Second Annual Donald Sanderson Memorial Symposium on Sport Concussion is open to the public – athletes, coaches, parents, researchers and anyone interested in the physical and psychological impact head injuries can have on individuals and […]

Professor Derek Wilson receives Early Researcher Award from province

Chemistry Professor Derek Wilson has been awarded $100,000 in funding under the Ontario government’s Early Researcher Awards program.   York West MPP Mario Sergio made the announcement Tuesday. York University’s research investment of $50,000 will match the funds for the award.  The Early Researcher Awards program helps promising, recently appointed Ontario researchers build research teams of […]

Professor Ellen Bialystok speaks to the New York Times about the bilingual advantage

A cognitive neuroscientist, Ellen Bialystok has spent almost 40 years learning about how bilingualism sharpens the mind, wrote The New York Times May 30: Her good news: Among other benefits, the regular use of two languages appears to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms. Dr. Bialystok, 62, a distinguished research professor of psychology at […]

Professor Christine Jonas-Smith premieres film on families living with perinatal loss

York nursing Professor Christine Jonas-Simpson has always been keenly interested in loss and grief, how people experience it and how they integrate it into their lives in a continuing way. It was while doing research on daughters who had lost their mothers to Alzheimer’s disease that Jonas-Simpson experienced what she calls “the deepest loss of my […]

New partnership embeds York researchers at Southlake Hospital

A new research initiative involving a partnership between York University and Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket will see feature leading scientists from the University serving as embedded researchers at the hospital. York Professors Chris Ardern, Imogen Coe, Paul Ritvo and Lauren Sergio will work on site for one to two days a week with hospital clinicians to […]

LA Times cites Professor Ellen Bialystok in bilingualism story

Neuroscience researchers are increasingly coming to a consensus that bilingualism has many positive consequences for the brain, wrote the Los Angeles Times Feb. 26, in story that also appeared in the Chicago Tribune and on numerous US television news websites. Several such researchers travelled to this month’s annual meeting of the American Association for the […]

Professor Ellen Bialystok's report on Alzheimer's and bilingualism makes world headlines

Mastering a second language can pump up your brain in ways that seem to delay getting Alzheimer's disease later on, scientists said Friday, wrote The Associated Press and The Canadian Press Feb. 18 [via sympatico.ca], in a story that was featured in reports by more than 300 newspapers, television stations and radio stations around the […]

PhD student Kara Hawkins wins CIHR award to diagnose Alzheimer's early stages

On Saturday, Kara Hawkins stepped forward to receive a $2,500 award recognizing her as the highest-ranking applicant in Canada for a graduate scholarship in the field of aging. She accepted the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Aging Recognition Prize in Research in Aging at the annual conference of the Canadian Association on Gerontology in […]

Professor Ellen Bialystok co-authors CIHR-funded study on Alzheimer's and bilingualism

A team of Canadian researchers, including a York University professor, has uncovered further evidence that bilingualism can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s by up to five years. The study, published today in the journal Neurology, follows up on a 2007 study led by York University, which found that lifelong use of two or more languages […]