Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Brain plasticity, or neuroplasticity, refers to the brain's ability to change as a result of experience in a changing environment. Early brain development is marked by critical periods during which the brain is particularly adaptable to new experiences. Early life stress (ELS) during critical periods is considered the single most potent factor in determining brain development with lasting consequences. My NSERC-funded work has demonstrated that ELS "programs" the brain's plastic capacity and behaviour throughout life and even across generations. I developed the STRESS VULNERABILITY THEORY stating that stress during critical periods determines brain plasticity and behaviour across the lifespan and in subsequent generations depending on age, sex, genetic and epigenetic factors, to determine individual stress vulnerability and resilience.       My INTERDISCIPLINARY and TRANSLATIONAL research program will use advanced, high-resolution technologies to identify activity-dependent physiological, metabolic, genetic and epigenetic regulators of stress response in fundamental studies of brain plasticity and behavior. The OVERARCHING GOAL is to identify experience-dependent determinants of brain plasticity from early development to old age and across generations. We will investigate three specific hypotheses in experimental models.       HYPOTHESIS 1: Stress Vulnerability Shifts Critical Periods of Brain Development. We will examine mechanisms how ELS alters brain development, neural connectivity and behavioural outcome.       HYPOTHESIS 2: Intrinsic Factors Program Inter-individual Variation in Stress Vulnerability. We will examine the degree to which intrinsic factors, such as such as age, sex, and potentially heritable epigenetic markers, determine the response to ELS in terms of brain plasticity and behaviour.       HYPOTHESIS 3: Stress Vulnerability and Brain Plasticity are Programmed by Transgenerational Inheritance. We will examine how ELS differentially affects neuroplasticity and behavioural traits in subsequent generations.       SIGNIFICANCE: The multidisciplinary research approach to the study of neuroplasticity proposed here will significantly advance the understanding of neurobiological mechanisms of experience-dependent regulation of brain development and brain aging. Because experience-dependent brain plasticity is reflected in multi-level biological signatures, this work will provide novel insights into molecular neuroplasticity regulators. My LONG-TERM VISION is to understand how transgenerational epigenetic inheritance shapes neural and behavioural plasticity. This research will generate new biomarker `omics technologies that will have an impact on current and future technology trends.