Eveline Pasman’s PhD Research Journey: Interplays in Brain, Balance and Parkinson’s Disease

My name is Eveline Pasman and I’m an international student from The Netherlands about to finish my PhD in Kinesiology. My PhD is focused on increasing our understanding of what areas of the brain control healthy balance and how these areas are affected in individuals with Parkinson’s disease.

My interest in neurology and neuroscience started at a young age, as I grew up in a healthcare-oriented family. Following in my dad’s footsteps, I went to medical school in my hometown Nijmegen (The Netherlands).

My first exposure to doing research was when I completed a research internship of 9 months at UBC’s School of Kinesiology in 2008/2009. The decision to do this internship in Vancouver was a deliberate one. When I was 10 years old, my parents took me to Canada for a family vacation. It was when we visited Vancouver that I informed my family that I intended to live in Vancouver someday.

The opportunity to complete my 9-month research internship in Dr. Mark Carpenter’s lab was more random. It turned out one of the neurologists my dad worked with was an old friend of Dr. Carpenter and was willing to put me in touch with him. In Dr. Carpenter’s Neural Control of Posture and Movement Lab, I investigated the effect of fear and anxiety on balance control in individuals with Parkinson’s disease. Previous research had shown fear and anxiety influence balance control in healthy young and older adults, but it was unclear if this was also the case in individuals with Parkinson’s disease. The results of my study were published in an article titled, “Balance problems with Parkinson’s disease: are they anxiety-dependent?” in the journal Neuroscience.

After completing the research internship in Vancouver, I headed back to the Netherlands to finish medical school. During the last year of clinical internships, I focused on caring for patients with neurological problems, while continuing to be involved in research related to balance problems in individuals with Parkinson’s disease. My exposure to research during medical school solidified the idea that doing a PhD was the right path for me. I was happy to learn that Dr. Carpenter was open to me coming back to Vancouver to start my PhD and continue doing research on balance control in individuals with Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease that affects 1 in 500 Canadians. Balance problems and resultant falls are very common and debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Unfortunately, most treatments currently used for Parkinson’s disease do not alleviate, and sometimes even worsen, the balance problems. The ultimate goal of my PhD research is to identify regions of the brain that could serve as new targets for treatment interventions in Parkinson’s disease. Investigating the brain regions involved in balance control is complicated by the fact that most MRI scanners are horizontally based. For my PhD we, therefore, designed and custom-built a balance simulator. The balance simulator allows participants to perform balancing tasks while supine in the MRI scanner.

We recently showed the balance simulator was easy to use for both healthy elderly participants as well as individuals with Parkinson’s disease. In addition, we showed differences in upright standing balance control between healthy participants and individuals with Parkinson’s disease could also be detected using the balance simulator. The results of our work were published in an article titled, “A novel MRI compatible balance simulator to detect postural instability in Parkinson’s disease” in the journal Frontiers in Neurology. I’m currently analyzing and interpreting the brain activation data we were able to collect in healthy participants and individuals with Parkinson’s disease using our balance simulator in the MRI scanner. We hope to identify key regions of the brain that are contributing to balance problems in Parkinson’s disease and that might be used as targets for new treatment interventions.