Newsroom

Following the fire at the McIntyre Medical Building on Friday, July 13, teams of McGill and external experts have been working around the clock to return the building to normal operations as soon as possible. We are taking occupants’ research, work, studies, and safety extremely seriously.

The McIntyre will remain closed until at least the morning of Wednesday, July 25, as further assessment, remediation, and preparation take place. However, we hope to potentially begin reopening portions of the building as early as mid-next week.

A sample of ancient oxygen, teased out of a 1.4 billion-year-old evaporative lake deposit in Ontario, provides fresh evidence of what the Earth’s atmosphere and biosphere were like during the interval leading up to the emergence of animal life. 

Following the weekend fire at the McIntyre Medical Building, McIntyre will remain closed until further notice. We are working around the clock to verify the integrity of the structure, replace damaged fire systems, and complete other crucial assessments and remediations. We may be able to re-open some unaffected portions of the building in the coming days. Other areas may remain off-limits longer.

Scientist Brenda Milner, born in 1918, pioneered memory research

Pioneering neuropsychologist Brenda Milner turns 100 today. Milner made groundbreaking discoveries in the field of human memory.  

Born on July 15, 1918 in Manchester, UK, Milner came to Canada in 1944 and finished a PhD at McGill University under psychologist Donald Hebb in 1952, moving on to a tenured position studying epilepsy patients at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro).

(July 14, 2018 - 12:15 pm) On the evening of July 13, a fire was reported on the outdoor terrace of the McIntyre Medical Building. Authorities arrived quickly and the fire was soon extinguished. No one was injured. We ask that people continue to avoid the area.

Technique can be used to better categorize patients with neurological disease, according to their therapeutic needs

Personalized medicine – delivering therapies specially tailored to a patient’s unique physiology – has been a goal of researchers and doctors for a long time. New research provides a way of delivering personalized treatments to patients with neurological disease.

If you want to learn to walk a tightrope, it’s a good idea to go for a short run after each practice session. That’s because a recent study in NeuroImage demonstrates that exercise performed immediately after practicing a new motor skill improves its long-term retention. More specifically, the research shows, for the first time, that as little as a single fifteen-minute bout of cardiovascular exercise increases brain connectivity and efficiency.

A new study, published today in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, moves researchers closer to understanding one of the crucial proteins involved in Parkinson’s disease.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the most massive and complex science experiment in human history, is a prime example of global achievement through collaboration. Driven by a multinational community of researchers, engineers, and technicians from over 100 countries, the LHC has enabled us to push the boundaries of scientific knowledge.

In a study published in Stem Cell Reports, a McGill University team of scientists led by Dr. Carl Ernst, researcher at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre, revealed a molecular mechanism that may play a role in the development of autism.

By taking skin cells from patients and reprogramming those cells to become brain cells through genetic engineering, Dr. Ernst, graduate student Scott Bell, and Edward A. Fon and Thomas M. Durcan, colleagues at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, tracked how a brain cell with the patient’s own mutation develops improperly.

Montreal — In a study published in Stem Cell Reports, a McGill team of scientists led by Dr. Carl Ernst, researcher at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre, revealed a molecular mechanism that may play a role in the development of autism.

The Government of Quebec is investing $37 million for McGill University to continue its plans to transform the old Royal Victoria Hospital into a global hub for learning, research and innovation in environmental sustainability and public policy. The announcement was made at McGill on Friday, June 22, by three cabinet ministers: Hélène David, Minister responsible for Higher Education; Dr.

A transformative gift of $10 million from the Irving Ludmer Family Foundation in support of the Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics & Mental Health will expand the Centre’s internationally renowned role in brain research and establish a Global Brain Consortium of leading research institutions. The consortium will focus on sharing research methodologies and results, with the goal of accelerating the finding of novel and ground-breaking solutions to mental health and neurodegenerative diseases.

Discovery will aid diagnosis and development of treatments

Scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro) and McGill University have identified novel genes associated with a specific form of schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a major psychiatric illness affecting one per cent of the population worldwide. Patients suffering from schizophrenia present delusions, hallucinations, abnormal behavior, impairment in daily life and cognitive deficits. Current treatments are insufficient in addressing all of these symptoms.

The study of a Québec family with an unusual gene provides novel insight into how our brain is built and, according to the McGill led team of scientists, offers a better understanding of psychiatric disorders such as depression, addictions and schizophrenia.

Very little is known about how the human brain wires itself. Mouse studies conducted by Cecilia Flores, Professor in McGill’s Department of Psychiatry, have previously shown that the gene, DCC, helps dopamine producing cells in the developing adolescent brain make specific connections.

Dialogue McGill and Cégep à distance recently kicked off a tour of CEGEPs to promote free digital curriculum tools designed to help French-speaking persons to enhance their ability to provide services to English-speaking clients within Quebec’s health network.

Click to read the press release

McGill University today announces an agreement with CAE Healthcare, and DePuy Synthes Products, Inc., part of the Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Companies, to develop a Virtual Reality (VR) platform to train orthopedic and neurosurgeons in advanced spinal surgery techniques. The new platform will leverage Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) technology and Finite Element Method (FEM) modeling to create a real life surgical simulation environment using haptics with the potential to drastically reduce the training time for spine surgeons.

By Neuro Staff

When the general public thinks of HIV, they do not think of a neurological disease, yet people living with HIV infection know they need to worry about their brain health.

Untreated, HIV can cause severe dementia. Even with good control of the infection, a third or more of patients have problems with thinking or concentration, and many have mental health challenges. These issues are of particular concern in those over 50, a rapidly expanding group given the success of modern antiretroviral treatment.

If China is to achieve its target of 95% grain self-sufficiency by 2030 it will need to restrict the conversion of arable land to other uses say researchers from McGill. This may prove challenging in a country with a population of almost 1.4 billion, but with just under 13% of arable land, close to half of which is suffering from soil degradation. After analyzing the potential impacts of various current trade-related food policies, the researchers have arrived at the conclusion that the current Red Line arable land protection policy is insufficient to reach the government’s desired goal.

Male guppies exposed to predators in the wild or in captivity have heavier brains than those living in relatively predator-free conditions, according to new research published in the journal Functional Ecology.

Behavioural ecologists at McGill University in Montreal sampled guppies from two rivers in northern Trinidad. In each river, guppies live both above a waterfall, a location that only guppies and a few other small species of fish have managed to colonize, and below the fall, where many predators including pike cichlids live.