Page 6 - Report to Our Community 2018/19

Elevate Canada
as a world destination
for commercialization
and discovery.

UHN and

U of T launch

CRANIA

New centre to advance solutions
for diseases such as Parkinson’s
and Alzheimer’s

The CenteR for Advancing Neurotechnological
Innovation to Application (CRANIA) aims to find Drs. Milos Popovic and Taufik Valiante
safe and permanent solutions for conditions that
have been haunting humanity, such as Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s, depression, epilepsy, chronic pain, plinary and integrated approach that will allow us to
spinal cord injury, amongst many others. better understand brain dysfunctions and develop
new solutions for our patients.”
Just how will it do that? Through unique techno-
logical advancements invented and made in Canada, Currently, the state-of-the-art approach in many
and applied to the field of neuromodulation. areas of neuroscience typically treats an area or region,
rather than pinpointing the source of the problem.
Neuromodulation uses sophisticated devices that
can be implanted in a patient’s brain, spinal cord or “It’s like giving antibiotics to a whole city because
peripheral nerves. These devices modulate neuronal one person has an infection,” says Dr. Milos Popovic,
activity, either through electric, or chemical Research Director at the Toronto Rehabilitation
stimulus. They can help control tremors from Institute (TRI) and the co-founder of CRANIA.
Parkinson’s, relieve chronic pain or even improve “We end up hitting a lot more neurons than we
bladder control. It is a field that is progressing need to, healthy neurons… At CRANIA we will
rapidly in medicine. drastically improve accuracy and precision of
treatments, targeting only the diseased neurons, and
Dr. Taufik Valiante, scientist at the Krembil
Research Institute, neurosurgeon at Toronto preserving many more of the already healthy ones.”
Western Hospital and co-founder of CRANIA,
says that although Canada has a strong tradition CRANIA researchers are using highly-advanced
of research in healthcare, it has lagged behind in technologies to better understand how these
neuromodulation development and commercial- diseases affect the brain. By analyzing this data
ization. CRANIA is changing that. using machine learning, they will be able to develop
customized solutions which will target a specific
“When we import technology we have no ability to dysfunction with less or no side effects.
change it and to innovate,” says Dr. Valiante. “At
CRANIA, we will have this unique multi-disci- „ READ MORE

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