HYBRID EVENT: You can participate in person at Paris, France or Virtually from your home or work.

9th Edition of International Conference on

Neurology and Neurological Disorders

June 20-22, 2024 | Paris, France

Neurology 2022

Kenneth B Storey

Speaker at Neurology and Neurological Disorders 2022 - Kenneth B Storey
Carleton University, Canada
Title : The brain in winter

Abstract:

The human brain operates in a protected environment of constant temperature and uninterrupted resources of oxygen and nutrients. However, many other vertebrates show amazing plasticity of their brain function. Their brains function with greater flexibility and provide important lessons for us about “How Brains Work” under stressful environmental conditions. My lab studies vertebrate species that freeze solid in winter (including their brains), changing brain biochemistry and gene regulation to endure freeze/thaw with no damage. The brains other vertebrates can survive with no oxygen; we would be dead but for them it’s no problem, no damage. Many non-human mammals hibernate in winter – turning down their brain metabolism to near zero using epigenetic controls to shut down gene expression and posttranslational controls to suppress protein/enzyme function, all reversible with no damage. Some hibernators can chill their bodies to near 0°C, suppressing brain function for weeks/months. Others hibernate at high body temperature with complex controls to coordinate the suppression of their metabolism. Studies of all these animals teach us new paradigms of metabolic control and demonstrate the enormous plasticity of animal metabolism. Future of Brain Health:  can we find ways to utilize lessons from Nature to unlock more flexibility of brain function than we have found to date and apply these lessons to protecting the human brain from disease and damage

Biography:

Dr. Kenneth B. Storey, Ph.D., F.R.S.C., is a Professor of Biochemistry at Carleton University in Ottawa and holds the Canada Research Chair in Molecular Physiology. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Calgary and his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia. Ken is a world leader in the field of biochemical adaptation. He uses tools of enzymology, protein chemistry and molecular biology to identify the adaptations of gene regulation and enzyme structure/function that support amazing animal phenomena including hibernation, freezing survival, estivation and anoxia tolerance with a particular focus on the mechanisms metabolic rate depression that support these phenomena. Ken is a prolific author and speaker – he has over 1000 publications to his name and has given hundreds of talks around the world. Ken won the 2010 Flavelle medal in Biological Sciences from the Royal Society of Canada, “CryoFellow” of the CryoBiology Society in 2012   and the 2011 Fry medal from the Canadian Society of Zoologists. 

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