In 1999, Canada became the first country in the world to provide Internet access to all of its schools. The move brought students the benefits of unlimited online educational resources and opened up a new world of communication, through email, websites, web cams and chat rooms. But with it came an unexpected threat: cyber bullying.

Faye Mishna, an associate professor in the Faculty of Social Work (FSW) and the Margaret and Wallace McCain Family Chair in Child and Family, has set out to explore this little-understood problem.

Research in the United States and the United Kingdom shows that 20 to 25 per cent of kids have experienced some form of online abuse, but Mishna predicts the problem is growing. "There is a whole explosion of different forms of abuse on the Internet, from sexual solicitation and stalking - adults to kids - to peer-to-peer harassment and bullying," says Mishna. "I think the problem is just going to get bigger and bigger."

Mishna plans to address both aspects of the problem and has partnered with colleague Robert McFadden on a comprehensive research program, funded by Bell Canada. One piece of that puzzle is a study on peer-to-peer bullying, which involves a survey, preceded by focus groups, to gather information about the cyber bullying experiences of kids aged 10 to 17 at schools in the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Board of Jewish Education.

The team, which also includes former FSW Dean Jim Barber, faculty member Tahany Gadalla and research coordinator Joanne Daciuk, plans to survey parents, teachers and administrators as well to get their take on the issue.

Cyber bullying, says Mishna, can be just as damaging as the face-to-face variety - or more so. "The anonymity of online communication means that people might feel free to do things they would never do in the real world."

The research program has already attracted support from the Toronto Police Service and Kids Help Phone.

"Kids Help Phone launched its 'Ask a Counsellor' website in 2004, and they're struggling to respond to the volume of postings," says Mishna. "So we're looking at ways the Faculty of Social Work can become involved and, at the same time, use the information to further our research."

Mishna hopes the work will offer a greater understanding of the problem and provide solutions. The team is developing a website to communicate research results and, ultimately, provide strategic advice and policy direction for intervention and prevention. "School policies for dealing with non-physical forms of bullying are harder to implement, so there's a danger that it'll get lost."

How do we remember pain? U of T physiology professor Min Zhuo has charted how and where painful events become permanently etched in our memory by studying the biochemical processes in an unlikely part of the brain.

Zhuo, who led a team that also included Bong-Kiun Kaang of Seoul National University in South Korea and Bao-Ming Li of Fudan University in China, used mice to show how receptors activated in the pre-frontal cortex, the portion of the brain believed to be involved with higher intellectual functions, play a critical role in the development of fear. Previous research had pointed to activation in the hippocampus, an area in the forebrain that regulates emotion and memory, as the origin of fear memory.

"This is critical as it changes how and where scientists thought fear was developed," says Zhuo. "By understanding the biomolecular mechanisms behind fear, we could potentially create therapeutic ways to ease emotional pain in people. Imagine reducing the ability of distressing events, such as amputations, to be permanently imprinted in the brain."

Zhuo says that fear memory does not occur immediately after a painful event; rather, it takes time for the memory to become part of our consciousness. The initial event activates NMDA receptors - molecules on cells that receive messages and then produce specific physiological effects in the cell. Over time, the receptors leave their imprint on brain cells.

The researchers activated the NMDA receptors and traced a subunit of the molecule - a protein called NR2B - long believed to be associated with fear memory in the hippocampus and the amygdala, an almond-shaped structure in front of the hippocampus.

The team then discovered traces of NR2B in the pre-frontal cortex, supporting their theory that fear memory develops in that region. "By identifying NR2B in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, we propose that fear memory originates from a network of receptors, rather than one simple area," Zhuo says.

The next step is to determine how NR2B directly affects memory formation and storage in the brain. "While we know it exists in the hippocampus, amygdala and the pre-frontal cortex, we don't know exactly how it alters them. Once we understand the implications for each part, we will be able to reduce NR2B and effectively reduce fear memory."

Balancing and walking are not the only motor processes affected by Parkinson's disease. Oral motor processes can also become compromised, limiting speech intelligibility, and in the case of swallowing, can lead to fatal complications.

Pascal van Lieshout, an associate professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology who is cross-appointed to the Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME), looks at how our oral motor system develops and what can disrupt it.

The Canada Research Chair in Oral Motor Function heads the Oral Dynamics Laboratory, one of the few labs in the world equipped to examine tongue control in speaking and swallowing. Subjects drink a variety of liquids - water, apple juice and thickened apple juice - and with state-of-the-art equipment, van Lieshout analyzes the subtle movements made by the lips, tongue and jaw.

Pneumonia, a leading cause of Parkinson's fatalities, is believed to be linked to aspiration, or the inhalation of food into the respiratory tract. With Catriona Steele, a scientist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and Tony Lang, director of the Morton & Gloria Shulman Movement Disorders Centre at Toronto Western Hospital, van Lieshout is working to understand which risk factors might lead to aspiration.

For patients who suffer from swallowing disorders, clinical research has shown with thicker fluids, aspiration does not occur as quickly. "We're trying to figure out how the tongue is able to handle these thicker fluids differently."

Van Lieshout is also hoping to develop a rehabilitation tool that can restore facial expression in Parkinson's patients who develop "face mask," or the vacant expression that results from limited movement of facial muscles.

In collaboration with Willy Wong of the IBBME and Lang, van Lieshout plans to develop a model of a face that responds to sounds with the appropriate facial motions.

"We can't restore facial expression to normal function in people who have Parkinson's, but we'd like to make their overall speech more intelligible."