8 MB - University of Toronto Magazine

Leading Edge
The problem is that different mechanisms
in the brain might be working together to
produce similar symptoms in patients.
In an effort to tease apart these different
mechanisms and to find ways to predict how
different types of depression will respond to
treatments, the researchers are recruiting 300
patients and 100 healthy subjects at six academic
centres across Canada. The study will take three
years. The researchers will look to see which
gene variants the study participants have and
which proteins those genes produce, with a
particular focus on those known to play a role
in depression or in how the body processes antidepressants.
The researchers will also assess
the patients for anxiety and how clearly they are
able to think, take their family medical history
and note any traumatic life events. Finally, they
will use EEG to map brainwave activity and
functional magnetic resonance imaging to track
bloodflow to see what’s going on in the depressed
– or recovering – person’s brain.
These data are being collected at three points
in the study: before starting on medication, two
weeks after starting, and at the eight-week mark.
All patients will take the same drug, escitalopram.
Kennedy’s aim is to find out what distinguishes
the people who do well quickly, the people who
do well eventually and the people who never do
well on a given antidepressant. It may be that
people with a certain combination of genes plus
certain brain imaging and blood results can be
identified in advance as good responders. “We
believe if we combine enough of these markers,
we will be able to predict the right treatment for
individual patients,” he says.
Kennedy expects that, once it is easier to predict
who benefits from what, drug companies
will begin to target their medications more specifically.
Rather than claiming only 40 per cent
of all depressed patients improved, for instance,
they might be able to claim 80 or 90 per cent in
particular subpopulations – groups that will be
objectively identified through biomarkers.
In the end, says Kennedy, biomarkers will not
only help confirm which people do have depression,
what type of depression they have and
what medication might work best, they may also
point the way to the causes – leading to novel
treatments. – Alison Motluk
Property Value
Toronto’s land-use maps are
important planning tools but they lack
detail and are often out-of-date.
Not for much longer
One wall of the boardroom at U of T’s Cities Centre is covered by an
intricate, multi-hued map of Greater Toronto. At first glance, it looks like
a large version of a typical land-use planning chart. But for geographers
André Sorensen and Paul Hess, the giant map represents a highly detailed
answer to an elusive riddle: how is land actually being used in the suburbs
“Our primary goal,” says Sorensen, “is to study what we have built
over the last 60 years.”
Municipal planning diagrams don’t provide much detail, and the province
doesn’t make its land-use data available to researchers. As well, zoning
and approved uses for a particular site don’t necessarily correspond to
what ended up being built there.
To fill the void of accurate data, Sorensen and Hess recruited about three
dozen students to meticulously code the actual land uses on each piece
of property across the GTA. (They excluded parts of downtown Toronto
because large buildings often contain multiple uses, and are difficult
to classify). Their research tool: Google Street View, which allows users to
zoom in and “see” what’s happening at ground level in every nook and
cranny of the city. “It’s very laborious,” admits Sorensen, noting that in
three years the team has coded five million parcels of land; the analysis
will continue for another two years. The aim is to create a baseline, and
then update it every five years in tandem with the census.
Once complete, the project will yield a far more detailed map of land use
in the GTA than has ever been publicly available. What’s more, by cataloguing
what’s actually taken root in post-war subdivisions and combining
this information with census data and zoning rules, Sorensen and Hess
believe they will develop a much keener understanding of what kinds of
planning policies yielded the sorts of compact, mixed-used communities
that are still rare in suburban municipalities. “We’re still building the
dream city of the 1950s,” muses Sorensen. “There are places where this
pattern was changed, and we’re looking at why.” – John Lorinc
20 WWW.MAGAZINE.UTORONTO.CA
photo: Juan Batet/iSTOCKPHOTO