Neuroscientist Jane Lawrence-Dewar says her ultimate goal is to provide better care for stroke patients with less invasive medical imaging.
The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences board of governors officially welcomed Lawrence-Dewar, the newest scientist at the hospital and Regional Research Institute, at a media conference Friday.
Lawrence-Dewar, a graduate from University of Manitoba and Stanford University, has focused her research on how the brain reorganizes after a stroke.
Lawrence-Dewar specializes in working with the hospital’s Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine. The FMRI is a technique to measure brain activity. Compared to other methods it is considered less invasive as it doesn’t use radiation in its imaging process.
Lawrence-Dewar said she’s bringing a technique she developed through her graduate studies to Thunder Bay to find out how people’s minds take to tasks after having a stroke.
The ultimate goal is to improve patient recovery through rehab, she said.
“Following a stroke injury, many patients are able to recover some sort of function,” Lawrence-Dewar said.
“But we don’t understand what happens in the brain to facilitate this. I’m hoping by improving our knowledge of how this happens we can end up improving the techniques that we use and hopefully this will end up with more patients experiencing better improvement.”
Lawrence-Dewar, who is from Winnipeg, decided to move to Thunder Bay because said she has family here and for the chance to work with a hospital that had a close network with the community. Some research institutes in other cities may have hospitals but they don’t always have the close environment that the Health Sciences Centre does, she said.
Michael Wood, vice president of research at TBRRI, said they are enthusiastic to have Lawrence-Dewar conduct her research in Thunder Bay.
“The arrival of Dr. Lawrence-Dewar allows us to begin a program in FMRI, which is a very attractive technology for neuroscientists and for doctors,” Wood said.
“We are making steady progress and the addition Dr. Lawrence-Dewar to our team is a recruitment story that brings excellent potential for collaboration and new areas of research.”
