Precision brain research for personalized mental health care
The brain is our most complex organ and no two brains are the same. Brains with mental illness can exhibit an array of unique abnormalities in their sensory, perceptual, attentional and emotional processes. Despite this, current treatment approaches to diagnosis and treatment are still commonly one-size-fits-all.
Researchers are using advancing technology to better understand basic sensory, cognitive and emotional processes, and the effects of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions on the brain in the context of psychiatry.
Our focus
- Comparative studies to examine neural profiles associated with basic sensory, emotional and cognitive differences between individuals with mental illness and healthy controls
- Treatment studies to investigate the effects of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions in psychiatric illness
- Multimodal imaging and machine-learning approaches to aid with personalized treatment
How it works
Using various neuroimaging and brain electrical activity techniques including clinical electroencephalography (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), the Clinical EEG & Neuroimaging Research Unit seeks to more accurately diagnose mental illness and develop more individualized and precision-based treatment strategies (while reducing trial and error) based on our unique brain profiles.
We hope to one day be at a point where we can look at brain imaging markers and clinical markers together for each patient, and be able to objectively tell someone, for instance, which anti-depressant or type of treatment they will best respond to.
Non-pharmacological treatments
Ongoing research in this unit also explores the effects of various non-pharmacological treatment approaches (such as aerobic exercise and stimulation therapies) on neural profiles, to characterize what brain profiles may “respond” best to which types of treatment. Increasingly, researchers are applying machine learning and big-data approaches to attain this goal.
Because depression often emerges in youth (16-24 year olds)—and because various health agencies have published warnings regarding the use of some drug therapies in this age bracket—the research team has a strong focus on youth mental illness as well.
Though much of the laboratory’s work centers on better understanding the brain profiles of individuals with depression, studies have examined brain features in populations with schizophrenia, ADHD and dysfunctional anger, as well as non-psychiatric populations.
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Donations are essential to the advancement of mental health research and the discovery of new, more impactful treatments for mental illness.
