Fraser Olsen

Fraser Olsen

B.Sc. Honors Neuroscience, University of Alberta, 2004-2008
M.Sc. in Neuroscience, University of Alberta, 2008-2011, supervisor: Dr. Simon Gosgnach
Research Assistant
780-492-7541
folsen@ualberta.ca

As our lab's Research Assistant, Fraser's primary roles include the recruitment and screening of subjects for our ongoing Aging Study and fMRI investigations, contacting subjects and booking MRI scans and cognitive testing sessions, and physically meeting with volunteers to bring them down to the MRI center for their scanning sessions. Fraser also administers a portion of the cognitive testing battery for the Aging Study and handles day-to-day lab operations and procedures.

Fraser graduated with his Bachelor of Science in the Neuroscience Honours program at the University of Alberta in 2008, and went on to do his Master of Science degree in the Neuroscience program at the U of A, working under Dr. Simon Gosgnach in the Department of Physiology. Fraser's Master's work in the field of developmental neurobiology in the neonatal mouse focused on the locomotor Central Pattern Generator or CPG, the network of interneurons in the lumbar spinal cord that is responsible for generating the basic rhythm and pattern of motor neuron activation that results in locomotor behaviour. Fraser graduated with his Master's in September of 2011, completing his thesis titled "The V0 Interneurons: First-Order Interneurons of the Locomotor CPG?" in which he investigated the possibility that a specific population of interneurons, the V0 population, which is defined by the expression of the transcription factor dbx1 during embryonic development, may play an integral role in the locomotor CPG and directly receive descending commands signalling the initiation of locomotor activity originating in the brainstem reticular formation.

Master's Thesis: The V0 Interneurons: First-Order Interneurons of the Locomotor CPG