In November 2018, Raed published the findings of his Masters which explored the recruitment of trunk musculature by different robotic exoskeletons (Ekso & Lokomat) in individuals with a high thoracic motor-complete SCI. To find which elicited trunk activation, read more here!
Congratulations to authors Raed Alamro, Dr. Amanda Chisholm, Alison Williams, Dr. Mark Carpenter, and Dr. Tania Lam.
In November 2018, lab members Ali, Gevorg, Raza, Flurina, Mason, and Dr. Lam traveled to San Diego to present their latest research at the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) annual research meeting.
Raza, Ali, Flurina, and Gevorg arriving at SFN
This annual meeting is the world’s largest neuroscience conference dedicated to the nervous system. In 2018, the meeting brought together 28,691 attendees from across the world!
In March 2018, Ali received the Ajab (Jab) and Nirmal (Munni) Sidhoo Charities Fund Trainee Travel Grant. This grant is given to support VCHRI trainees conducting research in urology or nephrology to attend international scientific conferences.
In February 2018, Ali used these funds to travel with Dr. Tania Lam to Mumbai, India and attend the 10th World Congress for Neurorehabilitation. Great work, Ali!
For 8 weeks in the fall of 2018, Swiss student Flurina Jenal visited our laboratory before beginning to Master’s at Balgrist University Hospital in Zurich. Flurina assisted with many of our ongoing studies and also led the development of a pilot project to investigate the potential neuromodulatory effects of posterior tibial nerve stimulation. Flurina was also able to attend SFN 2018 with our laboratory in San Diego during her visit.
We wish Flurina all the best with her graduate program and hope to collaborate with her again in the future!
Previous master’s student Cynthia Tse published a systematic review in 2018 analyzing the efficacy of task specific rehabilitation interventions in improving sitting and standing balance function in individuals with SCI. This article identified further need for research on training interventions to improve balance control. Find the whole article here.
Congratulations to authors Cynthia Tse, Dr. Amanda Chisholm, Dr. Tania Lam, Dr. Janice Eng, and the SCIRE research team.
In January 2017, Raza published his Master’s work which explored the role of sensorimotor integration of vision and proprioception in ambulatory individuals with SCI while obstacle crossing. He found that vision was more important for obstacle crossing for ambulatory individuals with SCI compared to able bodied controls, due to proprioceptive deficits. Want to learn more? Read the full article here.
Congratulations to authors Raza Malik, Rachel Cote, and Dr. Tania Lam.
This month, the Human Locomotion Research Laboratory took a road trip to Jasper, AB for the 2017 NeuroHike conference! Neurohike is an annual event held in the Rockies that brings together researchers from Western Canada. Alternating between Jasper and Kananaskis, it provides a casual forum to talk science, have fun and as the name suggests, hike in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. We look forward to attending more NeuroHike conferences in years to come!
Lam Lab at the Old Fort Point lookout for NeuroHike 2017.
From L-R: Raza Malik, Alison Williams, Dr Tania Lam, Abdullah Alghamdi, Gevorg Eginyan, Andrea Lynn.
Last week, students from the Human Locomotion Research Laboratory attended the 7th Annual ICORD Trainee Symposium, a conference organized by students to showcase the amazing work being done by ICORD trainees. This year there were 129 attendees with 40 poster presentations and 10 oral presenters, as well as special plenary talks by Dr. Jeff Petruska, who traveled from the University of Louisville, and University of British Columbia’s Dr. Brett Finlay.
Taha Qaiser (third from the right) and Alison Williams (third from the left) with the other award winners from the ICORD Trainee Symposium
Congratulations to Taha Qaiser (MSc student) and Alison Williams (MSc student) who received third place in the oral presentations and second place in the master’s poster presentations respectively.
A huge congratulations to Taha Qaiser who successfully defended his Master’s of Science thesis on June 14th 2017! Taha has been a member of the lab since 2011 when he began as an Undergraduate Research Assistant through UBC’s Work Learn program. More recently, Taha’s thesis study which examined if it was possible to train proprioception after spinal cord injury showed some interesting results! We look forward to reading his published results down the road.
Dr Tania Lam and Taha Qaiser
Congratulations, Taha! You will be missed.
3 Minute Thesis (3MT) is an academic competition where participants have just three minutes to explain the breadth and significance of their thesis project to a non-specialist audience. This year, both Master’s student Taha Qaiser and PhD student Raza Malik from the Human Locomotion Research Lab qualified for UBC’s 3MT finals (top 8 in the whole of the university!). More recently, Taha placed first at the School of Kinesiology’s 3MT competition as a part of the Kinesiology Graduate Student Research Day. Well done Raza and Taha!