The majority of immune development and the ability to ‘tolerate’ food proteins occurs after birth, during the period when most infants’ are consuming human milk. The omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), is required for immune function but Canadian have one of the lowest contents of DHA in their breast milk in the world. The content of this fatty acid is highly variable in breast milk and depends primarily on dietary intake. Using information from the ...

This talk will discuss sleep of children as they transition to teens in the context of research that examines associations between brain systems that regulate sleep/wake behavior—the circadian timing system and the sleep homeostatic system. For example, adolescents’ circadian timing becomes later; their sleep “need” does not diminish; their sleep homeostatic system is also modified in a way that can modify sleep timing. A major implication of this work has been in the area of education, sp...

With aging, there are declines in sensorimotor functions such as fine motor control, gait and balance. Moreover, the largest age differences in brain structure are observed in the motor and somatosensory cortices. A key question of interest is why some individuals are more resilient than others to these functional declines. I will describe my findings showing that, in some cases, individual differences in sensorimotor system structure and function are associated with motor performance meas...