UNews - Deborah Saucier

Doctoral student using Parkland Institute award for study to uncover links between prenatal stress and aging

trevor.kenney — Wed, 17 Dec 2014 22:35:32 +0000

The effects of prenatal stress can be seen across generations and Mirela Ambeskovic is studying those effects across a lifespan.

Ambeskovic (BA '12, MSc '14), a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge doctoral student studying under neuroscientist Dr. Gerlinde Metz, became interested in studying the effects of prenatal stress because of the influence it had on her and her family when they lived in Bosnia. Ambeskovic’s grandmother experienced prenatal stress in the aftermath of the Second World War, when shelter and food were scarce, as did her mother a generation later.

Mirela Ambeskovic is seeking to determine how prenatal stress programs the brain and behaviour across generations.

“I was a prenatally stressed baby, too. When my mom was pregnant with me, my dad went into the army. So she was home alone and had to deal with lots,” says Ambeskovic. “In a way, I feel like it maybe benefited me, building the same kind of resilience I see in the subjects we test.”

She came to Canada in 1998 after her family, including her mother and two siblings, was displaced in the Bosnian war that lasted from 1992 to 1995. She attended Winston Churchill High School and started studying biology and psychology at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge a year after graduating. Two years later, she made the switch to neuroscience and got some experience working in the laboratory under Dr. Deborah Saucier, a former U of L professor of neuroscience. After she took a class on stress with Dr. Metz, she knew she’d found the field she wanted to explore further. Ambeskovic asked if Metz would take her on as a master’s student and a few days later she was in the lab.

“Everything fell into place. I stuck with it and now I’m doing my PhD. I love coming to work every day,” says Ambeskovic.

Her own stress level recently received a little reprieve when she was awarded a $5,000 scholarship through the Parkland Institute. With the financial pressure alleviated, she’ll be able to focus solely on her research.

“The main goal of my research is to determine how prenatal stress programs the brain and behaviour across generations,” she says. “I am interested in possible prenatal stress and aging interactions. I assess for cognitive and motor functions, depression and anxiety levels and brain plasticity in rats from young adulthood to middle-aged and aged.”

She studies rats over an 18-month period, equivalent to a human lifespan of 60 to 70 years. Every six months she evaluates brain and behavioural changes in the animals. Ambeskovic looks specifically at the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that integrates learning, memory and emotion and helps in decision-making. She also compares the effects of prenatal stress on males and females to see if any sex differences exist and whether the rats’ lifespans and susceptibility to diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, kidney failure and heart failure, are affected.

In addition to a control group of non-stressed rats, Ambeskovic studies a group of rats where only the great-grandmother was prenatally stressed and not subsequent generations, and another group where all four generations experienced prenatal stress. While her research isn’t yet completed, she’s already found some results that point to the effects of prenatal stress.

“Prenatally stressed animals have a shorter lifespan and are more prone to diseases earlier in life than non-stressed individuals,” she says. “Prenatally stressed animals age faster with earlier onset of motor and cognitive deficits. Interestingly, the males are more affected than females. Females deal much better with prenatal stress than males do. Their behaviour is not as affected, nor is their brain. It actually appears that the prenatally stressed females build resilience to stress and show enhanced cognitive and motor functions.”

Not all prenatal stress is bad. Some stress is good as it prepares individuals for the environment they are born into. For instance, an animal pre-programmed to survive in a stressful environment will cope better and go on to reproduce, ensuring survival of the species, and this may have evolutionary purposes.

“It catches up to them as they get older. The organism kind of gets run down,” says Ambeskovic. “Maybe that’s why we see the difference between males and females. Males are OK when they are younger to the stage that reproduction can happen. As they get older, their bodies run down and they start giving up faster. They age faster than the females. But why females are so resilient all the time I’m not quite sure.”

In a separate study, Ambeskovic looked at the effects of prenatal stress on the emotional or mental states in young and middle-aged male rats. She found increased levels of depression and anxiety, enhanced hyperactivity and stress hormone levels in middle-aged rats. She called this cluster of behaviours exhibited by her male rats a ‘middle-age crisis’ as it resonated with similar behaviours in humans.

Ambeskovic is also looking at the epigenetic effects of prenatal stress. Certain genes, or parts of genes, may be turned on or off, depending on the environment and the rat’s experiences. For example, putting animals in an enriched environment has been shown to reverse some of the effects of prenatal stress.

“In our multi-generationally stressed animals, a lot of genes seem to be either up or down regulated and these seem to be involved in aging and immune functions, along with diabetes and depression. We need to look further into specific genes and micro-RNAs (small sequences of specific DNA) that might be changing,” she says of future studies.

An opportunity to honour faculty achievement

trevor.kenney — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:52:13 +0000

Following is a list of those receiving awards, and the books they authored.

2011 Book Award Recipients
Pamela Adams, The Essential Equation
Yale D. Belanger, ed. Aboriginal Self-Government in Canada
Yale D. Belanger, Ways of Knowing
Reginald W. Bibby, The Emerging Millennials
Glenda Tibe Bonifacio, ed. Gender, Religion, and Migration
Bryson Brown, ed. On Preserving
Michael Campbell, Field Recordings of Icebergs Melting
Cynthia M. Chambers, Life Writing and Literary Métissage as an Ethos for Our Times
Andrea M. Cuéllar, The Quijos Chiefdoms
Dayna B. Daniels, Polygendered and Ponytailed
Alexander Darku, Empirical Essays in Open Economy Macroeconomics
Richard G. Delisle, Les Philosophies du Néo-Darwinisme
Elizabeth A. Galway, From Nursery Rhymes to Nationhood
Trudy Govier, A Practical Study of Argument
Geoffrey Hale, ed. Borders and Bridges
John S. Harding, Introduction to the Study of Religion
John S. Harding, Mahāyāna Phoenix
John S. Harding, ed. Wild Geese
Trevor W. Harrison, 21st Century Japan
Erika Hasebe-Ludt, Life Writing and Literary Métissage as an Ethos for Our Times
David J. Hay, The Military Leadership of Matilda of Canossa, 1046-1115
M. Gordon Hunter, ed. Handbook of Research on Information Management and the Global Landscape
M. Gordon Hunter, Little Empires
M. Gordon Hunter, ed. Selected Readings on Strategic Information Systems
M. Gordon Hunter, ed. Strategic Information Systems
M. Gordon Hunter, ed. Technological Advancement in Developed and Developing Countries
Dan Johnson, Grasshopper Identification & Control Methods
Edward Jurkowski, ed. Eduard Tubin
Dan Kazakoff, Little Empires
Abdie Kazemipur, Social Capital and Diversity
Abdie Kazemipur, The Generation X
Lynn Kennedy, Born Southern
Bryan Kolb, Introduction to Brain & Behavior
Igor Kovalchuk, ed. Genome Instability and Transgenerational Effects
Igor Kovalchuk, ed. Plant Epigenetics
Olga Kovalchuk, ed. Genome Instability and Transgenerational Effects
Christopher J. Kukucha, The Provinces and Canadian Foreign Trade Policy
James R. Linville, Amos and the Cosmic Imagination
Claudia Malacrida, ed. Sociology of the Body
Jennifer Mather, Octopus
Ian McAdam, Magic and Masculinity in Early Modern English Drama
Susan A. McDaniel, ed. Ageing: Key Issues for the Twenty-First Century
Susan A. McDaniel, Close Relations
Kevin M. McGeough, ed. American Schools of Oriental Research Archaeological Reports
Kevin M. McGeough, The Romans: An Introduction
Sheila McManus, ed. One Step Over the Line
Craig Monk, Writing the Lost Generation
Dave Witte Morris, Ergodic Theory, Groups, and Geometry
Richard E. Mueller, ed. Pursuing Higher Education in Canada
Richard E. Mueller, ed. Who Goes? Who Stays? What Matters?
Maria N. Ng, Pilgrimages
Janay Nugent, ed. Finding the Family in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland
Kent A. Peacock, The Quantum Revolution
Sergio Pellis, The Playful Brain
Sergio Pellis, Sex Differences
Adriana Predoi-Cross, ed. Infrared Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Accelerator Based Sources
Janice Rahn, ed. Viewfinding
Thomas A. Robinson, Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways
Hillary Rodrigues, Introduction to the Study of Religion
Deborah Saucier, Psychology
Shelley Scott, Nightwood Theatre
Jonathan P. Seldin, Lambda-Calculus and Combinators
Gongbing Shan, Arts Biomechanics
Amy J. Shaw, Crisis of Conscience
Alan Siaroff, Comparing Political Regimes
Michael Stingl, ed. The Price of Compassion
James Thomas, Production of High Quality Fenugreek
Brian Titley, The Indian Commissioners
David Townsend, The Essential Equation
Peter Visentin, Arts Biomechanics
Amy von Heyking, Teaching with Dear Canada
John von Heyking, ed. Civil Religion in Political Thought
John von Heyking, ed. Friendship & Politics
Judith Whitehead, Development and Dispossession in the Narmada Valley
Ian Q. Whishaw, Introduction to Brain & Behavior
Patrick C. Wilson, ed. Editing Eden
Pamela J.T. Winsor, The Language Experience Approach to Literacy for Children Learning English
Margret A. Winzer, Children with Exceptionalities in Canadian Classrooms
Margret A. Winzer, From Integration to Inclusion
Walter Wymer, ed. The Routledge Companion to Nonprofit Marketing

For a look at the March issue of the Legend in a flipbook format, follow this link.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ celebrates faculty authors

trevor.kenney — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:33:47 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge is celebrating the achievements of faculty members who authored books in the past two years with the 2011 Book Awards.

A public reception will be held in the Markin Hall Atrium on Wednesday, Mar. 16, beginning at 3 p.m.

Following is a list of those receiving awards, and the books they authored.

2011 Book Award Recipients

Pamela Adams, The Essential Equation
Yale D. Belanger, ed. Aboriginal Self-Government in Canada
Yale D. Belanger, Ways of Knowing
Reginald W. Bibby, The Emerging Millennials
Glenda Tibe Bonifacio, ed. Gender, Religion, and Migration
Bryson Brown, ed. On Preserving
Michael Campbell, Field Recordings of Icebergs Melting
Cynthia M. Chambers, Life Writing and Literary Métissage as an Ethos for Our Times
Andrea M. Cuéllar, The Quijos Chiefdoms
Dayna B. Daniels, Polygendered and Ponytailed
Alexander Darku, Empirical Essays in Open Economy Macroeconomics
Richard G. Delisle, Les Philosophies du Néo-Darwinisme
Elizabeth A. Galway, From Nursery Rhymes to Nationhood
Trudy Govier, A Practical Study of Argument
Geoffrey Hale, ed. Borders and Bridges
John S. Harding, Introduction to the Study of Religion
John S. Harding, Mahāyāna Phoenix
John S. Harding, ed. Wild Geese
Trevor W. Harrison, 21st Century Japan
Erika Hasebe-Ludt, Life Writing and Literary Métissage as an Ethos for Our Times
David J. Hay, The Military Leadership of Matilda of Canossa, 1046-1115
M. Gordon Hunter, ed. Handbook of Research on Information Management and the Global Landscape
M. Gordon Hunter, Little Empires
M. Gordon Hunter, ed. Selected Readings on Strategic Information Systems
M. Gordon Hunter, ed. Strategic Information Systems
M. Gordon Hunter, ed. Technological Advancement in Developed and Developing Countries
Dan Johnson, Grasshopper Identification & Control Methods
Edward Jurkowski, ed. Eduard Tubin
Dan Kazakoff, Little Empires
Abdie Kazemipur, Social Capital and Diversity
Abdie Kazemipur, The Generation X
Lynn Kennedy, Born Southern
Bryan Kolb, Introduction to Brain & Behavior
Igor Kovalchuk, ed. Genome Instability and Transgenerational Effects
Igor Kovalchuk, ed. Plant Epigenetics
Olga Kovalchuk, ed. Genome Instability and Transgenerational Effects
Christopher J. Kukucha, The Provinces and Canadian Foreign Trade Policy
James R. Linville, Amos and the Cosmic Imagination
Claudia Malacrida, ed. Sociology of the Body
Jennifer Mather, Octopus
Ian McAdam, Magic and Masculinity in Early Modern English Drama
Susan A. McDaniel, ed. Ageing: Key Issues for the Twenty-First Century
Susan A. McDaniel, Close Relations
Kevin M. McGeough, ed. American Schools of Oriental Research Archaeological Reports
Kevin M. McGeough, The Romans: An Introduction
Sheila McManus, ed. One Step Over the Line
Craig Monk, Writing the Lost Generation
Dave Witte Morris, Ergodic Theory, Groups, and Geometry
Richard E. Mueller, ed. Pursuing Higher Education in Canada
Richard E. Mueller, ed. Who Goes? Who Stays? What Matters?
Maria N. Ng, Pilgrimages
Janay Nugent, ed. Finding the Family in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland
Kent A. Peacock, The Quantum Revolution
Sergio Pellis, The Playful Brain
Sergio Pellis, Sex Differences
Adriana Predoi-Cross, ed. Infrared Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Accelerator Based Sources
Janice Rahn, ed. Viewfinding
Thomas A. Robinson, Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways
Hillary Rodrigues, Introduction to the Study of Religion
Deborah Saucier, Psychology
Shelley Scott, Nightwood Theatre
Jonathan P. Seldin, Lambda-Calculus and Combinators
Gongbing Shan, Arts Biomechanics
Amy J. Shaw, Crisis of Conscience
Alan Siaroff, Comparing Political Regimes
Michael Stingl, ed. The Price of Compassion
James Thomas, Production of High Quality Fenugreek
Brian Titley, The Indian Commissioners
David Townsend, The Essential Equation
Peter Visentin, Arts Biomechanics
Amy von Heyking, Teaching with Dear Canada
John von Heyking, ed. Civil Religion in Political Thought
John von Heyking, ed. Friendship & Politics
Judith Whitehead, Development and Dispossession in the Narmada Valley
Ian Q. Whishaw, Introduction to Brain & Behavior
Patrick C. Wilson, ed. Editing Eden
Pamela J.T. Winsor, The Language Experience Approach to Literacy for Children Learning English
Margret A. Winzer, Children with Exceptionalities in Canadian Classrooms
Margret A. Winzer, From Integration to Inclusion
Walter Wymer, ed. The Routledge Companion to Nonprofit Marketing

Saucier to leave U of L for dean appointment

trevor.kenney — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:25:54 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's Dr. Deborah Saucier, professor and Chair, Department of Neuroscience, will be leaving the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ next year after accepting the position of Dean of Science at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT).

Saucier has been at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ since 2006, joining the U of L as a Canada Research Chair and associate professor. She then progressed to the position of professor and then Chair of the department in 2009. Her appointment at UOIT begins July 1, 2011.

"On behalf of her many colleagues on campus, I would like to congratulate Dr. Saucier on her prospective appointment and wish her the best for her family and her future career in this new role," says Dr. Chris Nicol, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science.

Nicol says Saucier has been an outstanding colleague since joining the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ.

"She has served as director of the Canadian Centre of Behavioural Neuroscience and, more recently, as Chair of the Department of Neuroscience. In addition to a prodigious record of achievement as a scholar and teacher, she also has distinguished herself with recent service to the Faculty Association as Chair of the Academic Welfare Committee. She will be greatly missed on our campus."

Located in Oshawa, Ont. and founded in 2002, UOIT hosts more than 7,500 undergraduate and graduate students on two campuses.

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) is delighted to have Saucier join its team.

"Dr. Saucier has a proven track record of attracting research funding, investing wisely in her department and ensuring its success by providing opportunities for everyone to succeed, regardless of where they are in their career," says Dr. Richard Marceau, UOIT Provost. "We are looking ahead to Dr. Saucier's arrival at UOIT as our second dean of the Faculty of Science."

Saucier is a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Neuroscience. She received her PhD in psychology from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Western Ontario (UWO) in London, Ont. and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Neuropsychology at UWO in 1995.

Saucier spent three years as a faculty member in Psychology at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Regina and then in 1999 she accepted a position at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon where she was an associate professor of Psychology.

2010 faculty research awards

trevor.kenney — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:36:52 +0000

External SSHRC Grants
(Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council)

Paul Vasey and Martin Lalumiere (Aid to Research Workshops and Conferences in Canada) $23,663
Claudia Malacrida is a co-applicant on a $1 million CURA through the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta

Independent Foundational Grants

Fangfang Li $4,800
Duane Rockerbie $4,000
Ed Wasiak $3,000
David Gregory $11,780
Malla Stavroula $11,500

CREDO Applications
(Community of Research Excellence Development Opportunities)

Kiki Benzon
Robin Bright
Lynn Kennedy
Kevin McGeough
Janice Newberry
Claudia Steinke/Helen Kelley
Wei Xu

CIHR
(Canadian Institutes of Health Research)

Ute Kothe
Igor Kovalchuk
Gerlinde Metz
Paul Vasey
H.-J. Wieden
Kelley Williams-Whitt

AGRI
(Alberta Gaming Research Institute)

Noella Piquette-Tomei, $10,000
Robert Williams, $44,000

Alberta Innovates-Health Solutions
(formerly AHFMR)

Igor Kovalchuk

ARDN
(Alberta Rural Development Network)

Noella Piquette Tomei
Steve Ferzacca

NIH
(National Institutes of Health)

Bruce McNaughton (2 grants awarded by NIH to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Arizona were successfully transferred to the U of L)

Alberta Cancer Research Institute

Roy Golsteyn

Sport Science Association of Alberta

Jennifer Copeland

Alberta Family Wellness Initiative
(Norlien Foundation)

Noella Piquette-Tomei

NSERC CREATE Grant

Phil Teillet, Physics $1.5 Million over 6 years

NSERC Discovery Grants
(Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada)

Robert Laird, Biological Sciences (Developing and testing the evolutionary reliability theory of senescence) $24,000
Rene Boere, Chemistry & Biochemistry (Redox-generated free radicals: basic science to nanomaterials) $40,000
Paul Hayes, Chemistry & Biochemistry (Organometallic complexes of new pincer ligands: Structure, reactivity and catalysis) $61,000
Steven Mosimann, Chemistry & Biochemistry (Structure and function of PTP like inositol polyphosphatases) $31,000
Nathan Ng, Mathematics & Computer Science (Prime numbers and L-functions) $15,000
Aaron Gruber, Neuroscience (Dopamine modulation of neural dynamics and behavioral flexibility) $27,000
Brian Kolb, Neuroscience (Brain plasticity and behaviour) $105,000
Artur Luczak, Neuroscience (Neuronal population patterns - studying interactions among hundreds of neurons) $26,000
Deborah Saucier, Neuroscience (Neural and hormonal bases of sex differences in spatial ability) $42,000)
Masami Tatsuno, Neuroscience (Quiescent dependent memory consolidation: memory-trace replay during REM sleep) $23,000
David Euston, Psychology (Neural mechanisms of decision making in frontal cortex) $23,000
Martin Lalumiere, Psychology (The nature and functions of genital sexual arousal) $27,000
Paul Vasey, Psychology (The comparative biopsychology of non-conceptive sexuality) $30,000

NSERC Equipment Grants

Aaron Gruber, Neuroscience $96,373
Rene Boere, Chemistry $22,024

* We are unable to post SSHRC winners at this time as SSHRC has not officially announced its award recipients. They will be published once they are made available.

UNews - Deborah Saucier

Doctoral student using Parkland Institute award for study to uncover links between prenatal stress and aging

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