Master’s Student, Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary

Bria’s Question: What is the biological basis of choice?

Keystone Title: A Path Towards Pathos: A Genetic Approach to Understanding Apathy and Decision-Making Deficits in Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract: Bria’s keystone investigates apathy in Parkinson’s Disease and gives particular consideration to the role of dopamine levels, which have been under-examined in existing research. Parkinson’s Disease is commonly represented as a movement disorder, but it also presents with several non-motor symptoms including neuropsychiatric symptoms. Mele presents a literature review of the research on both areas of symptoms and then proposes research specifically on apathy as it presents in Parkinson’s Disease, the least understood non-motor symptom of PD.

Which Concentration Courses did you take?

• Behavioural Economics
• Brain Disorders
• Drugs and Behaviours
• Mechanisms of Neuropathology
• Brain Plasticity and Memory Cognition
• Molecular Biology

Which Electives did you take?

• Public Health Policy
• Politics of Health in South Africa
• Statistics
• Discrete Mathematics
• Quantitative Research Methods
• Microeconomics
• Spanish I

What did you do for Experiential Learning?
I interned at Alberta Health Services. My objective was to understand the research scope of projects that are focused on geriatrics—specifically, neurodegenerative diseases that onset in old age.