Dr. Melanie Martin

Dr. Melanie Martin UWinnipeg’s associate professor of physics, Dr. Melanie Martin, is working on ways to diagnose multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease earlier and with more certainty. As a person ages the brain shrinks, but the brain of someone with Alzheimer’s shrinks faster. Martin believes an area of the brain that shrinks rapidly with Alzheimer’s disease is the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory.

Martin is currently developing innovative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to allow researchers to view the brain in real time and measure brain shrinkage. The hope is this technique will allow doctors to diagnose Alzheimer’s sooner and have an objective marker, namely brain shrinkage, to evaluate treatments.

Martin’s research team includes UWinnipeg students Kerrie Hayes and Trevor Vincent, along with UWinnipeg alumni Sheryl Herrera, Jonathan Thiessen, and Marzena Kastyak-Ibrahim, a post-doctoral fellow who works with the Alzheimer Society of Canada.