Skip to main content Skip to main navigation Skip to page-level navigation Go to the Disability Resource Centre Website Go to the DRC Booking Accommodation Portal Go to the Inclusive Technology Lab Website
The University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia Okanagan campus
UBC Okanagan News
  • Research
  • People
    • Student Profile
    • Faculty Profile
    • Alumni Spotlight
  • Campus Life
    • Campus News
    • Student Life
    • Teaching & Learning
  • Community Engagement
  • About the Collection
    • Stories for Media
  • UBCO Events
  • Search All Stories
Home / 2016 / October / 19 / UBC professors share insight about the brain during Mini-Med
Health, Research

UBC professors share insight about the brain during Mini-Med

October 19, 2016

Mini-Med 2016

The human being’s most critical organ, the brain, is the topic of this year’s Mini-Med series.

Each year, UBC professors bring their knowledge out of the classroom and into the community for a four-week health-based lecture series. Starting October 25, the UBC Clinical Academic Campus, located at Kelowna General Hospital, is the site for the educational medical lectures.

“Mini-Med is another way Okanagan communities are sharing in the expertise at UBC,” says Deborah Buszard, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Principal. “This lecture series offers an extraordinary opportunity to learn about advances in health and medicine from leading researchers. As Mini-Med students, participants will get to know the brain and learn about pioneering discoveries which are improving diagnosis, treatment and care.”

Mini-Med 2016 curriculum: The Brain

October 25—Brain Basics: Facts, functions and anatomy Assoc. Prof. Bruce Mathieson,

Assoc. Prof. Bruce Mathieson, microbiologist and neuroscientist, will give a brief introduction on the brain and use an interactive tool he developed for his teaching program at UBC Okanagan. He will also discuss his own research program involving a new group of hormones—neurosteriods—thought to have potential implications for neurodegenerative disease.

November 1—Brain Afflictions: Why diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s take hold Prof. Philip Barker, molecular

Prof. Philip Barker, molecular biologist and biochemist, will discuss his basic science research program at UBC Okanagan involving Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Co-presenting with Barker is Dr. Daryl Wile MD, the newest neurologist to join the Parkinson’s community in Kelowna. The pair teams up for this bench to bedside lecture that looks at the earliest pre-clinical events in the brain and how they may eventually present clinically in diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

November 8—Understanding Stroke and Recovery

Dr. Harry Miller is a clinical neuropsychologist, clinical assistant professor of psychology and clinical instructor in the UBC department of psychiatry. Dr. Miller, who specializes in stroke recovery, will discuss his research into neglect; a very real after-effect of stroke that creates a perception of vision loss and at the same time severely hinders recovery. He’s joined by Jennifer Upshaw, a PhD student in UBC’s Clinical Psychology program, who will talk about hemi spatial neglect in stroke patients.

November 15—Addictions as a Brain Disease

Dr. Leslie Lappalainen, an addictions medicine specialist, will talk about how drug abuse and alcohol affect the brain and the science that underpins addiction. She’ll offer up some of the latest research for different treatments for alcohol and opioid addiction, and discuss reasons why they are currently underutilized. Dr. Lappalainen is the medical lead for Addiction Medicine, Mental Health and Substance Use at Interior Health, and a clinical instructor with the UBC Faculty of Medicine.

Registration is required and people can sign up for one session ($10) or all four. For the entire series, the fee is: adults $30; second adult $20; seniors (65+) $20; students: $15. Space is limited, so early registration is suggested: minimed.ok.ubc.ca

—30—

Media Contact

Patty Wellborn
E-mail: patty.wellborn@ubc.ca

Content type: Media Release
More content from: Biology, Irving K Barber School of Arts and Sciences (prior July 2020), Psychology, Southern Medical Program

Trending Stories

  • Reducing the side effects of cancer therapy
  • Psychedelic mushroom microdoses can improve mood, mental health
  • Putting community, students and research on the same track
  • UBCO’s largest graduating class marks 20 years of growth
  • How one student connects AI innovation to wildfire research
All Stories
Contact Media Relations

About UBC Okanagan

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose traditional, ancestral and unceded territory the campus resides. The most established and influential global rankings all consistently place UBC in the top five per cent of universities in the world, and among the top three Canadian universities.

The Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley. For more visit ok.ubc.ca.

Discover more about UBC Okanagan

Find a Program Admissions Book a Tour UBCO Facts
UBC Okanagan Campus News, University Relations

Innovation Precinct Annexation 1 (IA1)
3505 Spectrum Court
Kelowna, BC Canada V1V 2Z1

We respectfully acknowledge the Syilx Okanagan Nation and their peoples, in whose traditional, ancestral, unceded territory UBC Okanagan is situated.

 

Search all stories

Subscribe to receive news by email

Visit UBC's Vancouver news room

Global and Admin Messages

News

Okanagan Campus

TikTok icon Linkedin icon

UBC Okanagan News
Okanagan Campus
3333 University Way
Kelowna, BC Canada V1V 1V7
Find us on
  
Back to top
The University of British Columbia
  • Emergency Procedures |
  • Terms of Use |
  • Copyright |
  • Accessibility