Mind Over Matter tour comes to Ottawa and calls attention to the lack of research on women’s brains as they age

Deloitte and The Honourable Dr. Hedy Fry, MP and Liberal Health Critic, help raise awareness of gender imbalance in research.

Ottawa is the next stop on a six-city national tour that will bring leading neuroscientists and business leaders together in an effort to raise awareness of the need to enhance brain research that takes sex and gender into account.

The Women’s Brain Health Initiative (WBHI), which received tremendous support from all parties earlier this year when it launched on Parliament Hill, embarked on the Mind Over Matter (#mindovermatter) tour this month, advocating for additional research. While travelling across Canada, the tour group will also provide information about what women can do to stay brain-healthy longer.

“Current research and treatment still focus on male brains, even though women are twice as likely to be affected by dementia, stroke and depression as they age,” said Lynn Posluns, Founder and President of WBHI. “In fact, seventy per cent of new Alzheimer’s sufferers will be women. The Mind Over Matter Tour is about raising the awareness and funds necessary to understand the discrepancies between the brains of men and women in order to improve how we approach and treat women’s aging brains. Twenty years ago, researchers recognized that a woman’s heart attack presented differently from a man’s. Science needed to take sex into account in order to achieve a healthier outcome for all. It’s time to look at brain research through a sex and gender lens.”

The Mind Over Matter tour is hosted by Deloitte and is taking place at their offices across Canada. The Ottawa event will be attended by a select group of healthcare industry leaders. It will feature presentations by The Honourable Dr. Hedy Fry, MP and Liberal Health Critic, Lynn Posluns, WBHI President, and Jens Pruessner, Ph.D., Director, McGill Centre for Studies in Aging. Dr. Pruessner will be speaking on: Sex and age-specific effects of stress in health and disease.

DETAILS OF THE OTTAWA MIND OVER MATTER BREAKFAST EVENT
(Note: Event is by invitation only.)

• DATE: Wednesday, November 20, 2013

• TIME: 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. (formal presentations begin 8:45 a.m.)

• PLACE: Deloitte, 800-100 Queen Street, Ottawa

The Women’s Brain Health Initiative (WBHI) is a Canadian registered charity inspired to combat women’s brain aging disorders through investment in focused, innovative research at leading institutions around the world. The WBHI supports urgently needed leading-edge peer-reviewed research on women’s health and brain aging, to improve diagnostic and treatment methods. Ultimately, this research will improve brain health outcomes for women throughout the world. WBHI is a member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as part of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA).

For more information, visit http://womensbrainhealth.org/