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Director's Corner

Louis Pasteur and Brain Repair

There is a time in every man's life when he looks to his God, when he looks at his life, when he wonders how he will be remembered. It can happen with age or with tragedy or closeness of death. I am lying here at age 45, not able to feel my left side. Not knowing if this stroke that has befallen me will end my life before the mysteries that I have unlocked can be resolved. (in 'Life of Pasteur' by Vallery-Radot)

The stroke that severely incapacitated Louis Pasteur in 1868 was treated with leeches by his physician, and he was left to make what recovery he would. He was at the age of 45 already France's preeminent scientist, having worked on the chemistry of crystal formation, yeast fermentation, "spontaneous generation," cholera, and diseases of silkworms. Four years prior to his stroke, he had invented the process that bears him name. For this discovery alone he was awarded the Grand Prix medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1867. And then he suffered this terrible event which threatened to end his life.

Today we have sophisticated tools to reduce the risk of stroke. Hypertension is controllable, and aneurysms, another cause of stroke, are treatable in ways no one could have imagined when Penfield and colleagues first opened the doors of The Neuro. Now a thin catheter can be threaded into the brain vasculature and guided to the aneurysm with the aid of high resolution imaging devices. Once the catheter is in place, the aneurysm can be sealed. For ischemic strokes, we have "clot busting" drugs which, when administered promptly after the first symptoms appear, help restore blood flow and minimize damage to brain tissue.

Unfortunately, for many stroke patients, intervention comes too late, and the brain is damaged. It is our job to learn how to keep neurons alive after a stroke, and to encourage the re-growth of injured nerve fibers and the re-establishment of appropriate connections. These are some of the goals of the ambitious Brain Repair Initiative that will form one cornerstone of The Neuro of the 21st century. While we have much to learn about how to engage the natural repair mechanisms inherent in the adult brain, we already have a huge catalogue of potentially useful therapeutic agents to test, thanks to recent advances in recombinant DNA and proteomic methodologies. Our challenge is to use this catalogue to find the combination of agents and cellular therapies that will best effect nervous system repair.

And what of Pasteur? He made only a partial physical recovery from his first stroke - for the rest of his life he was unable to smile, and he spoke with a speech impediment. His left arm remained weak, and he dragged his left foot as he walked. Over the next 27 years, he endured a series of small strokes, finally succumbing to a massive one in 1895. However, and incredibly, it was over this period that he did his best work - working relentlessly despite his disabilities. He studied septicemia, plague, beer fermentation, gangrene and yellow fever. He developed an anthrax vaccine, and he showed that birds could be immunized against cholera. In 1885, in his most famous "experiment," Pasteur the scientist (he was not a licensed physician) developed a rabies vaccine, and treated a young boy, Joseph Meister, who had been severely bitten by a rabid dog. Meister survived, and the rabies vaccine came into immediate use.

And finally, a Shakespearean "aside" about Joseph Meister who naturally felt indebted to Pasteur. After Pasteur's death, he became caretaker of Pasteur's tomb at the Pasteur Institute. In 1940, when the Nazis invaded Paris, Meister committed suicide rather than turn over the keys to the tomb.

Please send any comments about the Director's Corner to David Colman

Recent Events

New Sloan Fellow
New MNI faculty member Chris Pack recently received the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship for two years. This year 116 of these highly prized fellowships were awarded to the very best young scientists in seven scientific fields, with only 16 going to neuroscientists in the US and Canada. Chris’ scientific creativity was important to his selection for this fellowship. In his work, Chris studies the code neurons use to communicate with neighboring cells by recording from individual neurons in the visual cortex. He is also examining the relationship between perception and behavior, and building quantitative models to describe what he sees. As inspiration for Chris and MNI colleague Peter McPherson, a former Sloan fellow, 32 Sloan Fellows have gone on to win the Nobel Prize since 1955 when the fellowships were established.

Brain Awareness
Talented young neuroscientists visited elementary and high school classrooms across Montreal during Brain Awareness Week, March 13-19, to educate students about how the brain works, the importance of protecting the brain from injury and more. The general public took advantage of four public lectures including Neuro 101: The ABC’s of how your brain works by Jim Pfaus and Michael Petrides at The Neuro. There was great enthusiasm for this annual educational extravaganza organized by McGill neuroscience graduate students, Katarina Dedovic and Mehereen Wadiwalla from the Douglas Hospital Research Centre together with students from the Montreal Neurological Institute & Hospital, the Université de Montréal, Concordia University and the Université du Québec à Montréal.

To celebrate the end of Brain Awareness Week, The Neuro hosted an Open House on Friday, March 17 organized by graduate students Penelope Kostopoulos and Rosanne Aleong. Sixth graders from different elementary schools observed exciting neuroscience demonstrations on olfaction, how MRI scanners work, how the brain can be stimulated through the skull with an electro-magnetic instrument (TMS) and what a real human brain looks like.

Neurons on the BIG screen
A new IMAX film now playing in Montreal shows spectacular images of the brain and describes the link between neurological reactions and top athletic performance. During Brain Awareness Week, 50 lucky people received free tickets from NeuroScience Canada to see Wired to Win: Surviving the Tour de France, and learned about how the brain helps us overcome adversity and accomplish feats that seem nearly impossible.

The Neuro Family

Neurologist François Dubeau, Director of the Electroencephalography (EEG) Services, is a key member of the Epilepsy group at the Neuro. François is part of a long tradition at the MNI where EEG was developed as the primary tool for diagnosing epilepsy. He has extended the use of EEG significantly by following in the path of MNI scientists Herbert Jasper, Peter Gloor and Luis-Felipé Quesney. François studies recordings from electrodes placed deep in the brain to find the epileptogenic foci, which are the starting points of seizure activity. This method is used to help patients when information from traditional surface EEG recording is inconclusive. François also studies neuronal migration defects which can be related to seizure disorders and is compiling a data base on more than 20 years of patient examinations. When not seeing patients, François enjoys cycling and has challenged himself several times in the mountains of France.

Upcoming Lectures

Science writers get together
John Robson, MNI’s Associate Director for Scientific Affairs, will host a discussion on writing science for a general audience with authors Wayne Grady and Jay Ingram at the 8th annual Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival on April 7 at 8pm, Hyatt Regency Hotel. Among Grady’s several books is his recent collection of natural history essays, Bringing Back the Dodo. Theatre of the Mind: Raising the curtain on consciousness is the newest book by Ingram, who is well known as host of the show ‘Daily Planet’ on the Discovery Channel. Tickets to this event are $5.

New additions
Next month, the Neuro’s North Wing Expansion Project will break ground. This 70,000 square foot pavilion will be an extension of the building up University Street. With four levels below ground and four above, the new North Wing will provide much needed space for clinical care and for expansion of research programs in brain imaging, multiple sclerosis and experimental therapeutics, and animal care facilities. A new barrier free entrance and exterior courtyard will welcome patients, easing their access to ambulatory services. This project was funded in part by a grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to the Montreal Consortium for Brain Imaging Research.

Please send any items for the MNI Bulletin to Sandra McPherson or Beth Kofron.