BrainsCAN Fellows
BrainsCAN is bringing the world’s most promising early career cognitive neuroscientists to Western University through the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Training the next generation of researchers is a key aim of BrainsCAN, and its fellows are the engines of innovative research.
In fall 2017, the first set of fellows joined the program under the designation of a BrainsCAN Fellow or Postdoctoral Associate.
Learn about the BrainsCAN Fellows and their research.
Current BrainsCAN Fellows:
Sarah Hayes, Pan Liu, Cassandra Lowe, Daniel Miller, Mina Nashed, Mojtaba Soltanlou, Nichole Scheerer, Kasey Van Hedger, Eric Wilkey
Former BrainsCAN Fellows:
Craig Allen, Björn Herrmann, Kaitlin Laidlaw, Liya Ma, Amy Reichelt, David Schaeffer, Stephen Van Hedger, Jeff Weiler, Yiming Xiao
BrainsCAN Fellow
PhD, Neuroscience and AuD, Audiology - University at Buffalo
Neuroinflammatory Regulation of Noise-Induced Auditory and Cognitive Impairment
Supervisor(s): Dr. Brian Allman, Dr. Shawn Whitehead, Dr. Wataru InoueResearch Information:
Hearing loss is one of the most prevalent chronic health conditions, affecting more than 1.2 billion people worldwide. It is well-recognized that excessive exposure to loud noise, resulting from environmental (e.g., city noise), recreational (e.g., loud music) and occupational (e.g., industry workers) insults, is a leading cause of permanent hearing loss. Beyond the devastating effects of hearing impairment itself, there is clear evidence that loud noise exposure also leads to pathology in brain regions both within and beyond the auditory pathway. For example, noise exposure can cause aberrant auditory perceptions such as tinnitus (i.e., “ringing in the ears”), as well as cognitive impairments in learning and memory tasks that do not depend on the auditory system. While the neural mechanisms contributing to noise-induced tinnitus and cognitive impairment remain elusive, accumulating evidence suggests that neuroinflammation plays an important role in mediating the brain plasticity thought to underlie these disorders. Using a combination of cell-specific in vivo neuroimaging and auditory/cognitive behavioural testing, my research aims to reveal how noise-induced neuroinflammation leads to aberrant neural activity in areas of the brain that control auditory perception, learning, memory and other higher-order cognitive functions. Ultimately, this work will address our crucial need to better understand the adverse effects of noise exposure on brain health.

BrainsCAN Fellow
PhD, Communication Sciences & Disorders - McGill University
The effect of attention bias training on adolescent internalizing problems: Neurobehavioral predictors and mechanism
Supervisor(s): Dr. Elizabeth Hayden, Dr. Marc JoanisseAdolescence is a critical period with respect to mental health problems, as depressive and anxious symptoms rapidly increase at this time. Subthreshold adolescent symptoms can evolve into clinically significant manifestations of disorder, resulting in personal suffering and placing serious demands on familial, social, and medical resources. Therefore, identifying etiological factors that place youth at risk, particularly ones that are modifiable, is crucial toward prevention. Maladaptive biases in attention play a causal role in risk and also appear amenable to early intervention, although specific attention components and their brain correlates are poorly understood. We will therefore use cutting-edge tools to examine the neural and attentional components that characterize at-risk youth, and will use an attention training paradigm to examine change in these related to prevention. Our findings will directly contribute to knowledge on the etiology of depression and anxiety and contribute to more efficient and cost-effective earlier prevention.

PhD, Public Health and Health Systems - University of Waterloo
Determining the neural circuits underlying excessive food intake in adolescents and young adults
Supervisor(s): Dr. J. Bruce Morton, Dr. Lindsay BodellThe sustained and excessive consumption of calorie-dense foods is the leading cause of preventable chronic disease and premature death worldwide. Limiting the consumption of these foods is therefore essential to maintain optimal health. However, in the modern food-rich environment, maintaining a healthy diet has become a difficult endeavor. The environment is saturated with unhealthy ultra-processed calorie-dense foods (those high in saturated fats and sugar), and these foods are often cheaper than their healthier counterparts. This is coupled with omnipresent cues, in the form of media advertisements, to consume these foods. While some individuals find it really difficult to control calorie-dense food consumption in this environment, others are more adept. My research seeks to understand why some individuals are more prone to overconsumption than others. Specifically, my body of research seeks to understand the neural circuits underlying vulnerability to over consumption, with the particular focus on how the prefrontal cortex regulates reward circuits in the brain to modulate consumptive behaviours across developmental contexts. By delineating these neurobiological processes, we will be able to identify the subtle cognitive and neural markers that increase the propensity to overeat. This would enable researchers and clinicians to identify those individuals that may be more likely to respond to a given intervention and provide the foundational work necessary to develop novel evidence-based interventions.
Publications:
Trends in Cognitive Sciences: Review suggests a reciprocal relationship between obesity and self-control
The Lancet: Adolescents prone to poor dietary choices, leading to changes in the brain

PhD, Psychology - Vanderbilt University
Validation and application of structural markers of auditory cortex to study crossmodal plasticity
Supervisor(s): Dr. Blake Butler, Dr. Ali KhanAuditory cortex (AUD) is critical to our perception of spoken language, and the crossmodal plasticity that follows hearing impairment to improve visual perception impedes hearing restoration. Hearing impairment makes it impossible to functionally localize AUD with noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods in order to understand the crossmodal plasticity that follows deafening. Structural MRI (sMRI) methods are thus needed to study the reorganization of AUD as it undergoes crossmodal plasticity following hearing impairment. Current imaging studies are increasingly using myelin to map the brain because MRI methods can measure how it restricts the movement of water. My previous work has shown that subregions of AUD differ markedly in quantitative myelin content, and recent imaging work confirms this agreement using structural and functional MRI in humans. This project establishes the precision of myelin as a structural marker of AUD in an animal model and then pilots the use of this method to study crossmodal reorganization in humans with hearing impairment. These results will fill a major gap in our understanding of the mechanisms of crossmodal plasticity by developing, validating, and applying the first structural marker of AUD to study the brain as it undergoes reorganization following hearing impairment.

PhD, Medical Sciences - McMaster University
Examining the effects of prenatal THC exposure on prefrontal-hippocampal interactions and long-term cognitive development
Supervisor(s): Dr. Steven Laviolette, Dr. Daniel Hardy, Dr. Walter RushlowUp to 20% of pregnant women self-report using cannabis during pregnancy. With recent decriminalization and progressive legalization of recreational cannabis in North America, this figure is projected to increase. While the THC component of cannabis has been shown to impair fetal growth in clinical populations and animal models, our understanding of the developmental effects, and associated neural pathways, of maternal cannabis consumption is currently lacking. This project will address this knowledge gap in a model of prenatal cannabis exposure. Specifically, the effects of cannabis constituents on cognition (e.g. learning and memory) will be investigated at the levels of behaviour, neural pathways, and brain structures. The goal of this project is to improve postnatal developmental outcomes and inform public awareness of the risks associated with prenatal cannabis consumption.

BrainsCAN Fellow
PhD, Philosophy – Wilfrid Laurier University
The impact of sensory-motor control of speech on social communication and development in children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorders across the lifespan
Supervisor(s): Dr. Ryan Stevenson, Dr. Janis Cardy, Dr. David PurcellSpeech is arguably the most important form of human communication. Since the goal of speech production is the transfer of information, speech production must be carefully regulated to ensure the desired information is conveyed. During speech production sensory feedback, such as auditory feedback, plays an important role in maintaining the fluidity of speech, as it allows speech motor movements to be monitored and production errors to be detected and corrected. A major focus of my research program is investigating how the role of sensory feedback in the control of speech changes throughout development in individuals with and without autism spectrum disorder. I am also interested in how the ability to extract and utilize the information contained in sensory feedback influences the development of higher-order cognitive processes such as speech communication, emotion regulation, and social competence.

BrainsCAN Fellow
PhD, Neuroscience – University of Tübingen
How do we know 'two' but not 'three' means '●●' objects? Neural correlates of symbolic number knowledge in preschoolers
Supervisor(s): Dr. Daniel Ansari, Dr. Marc JoanisseOne of the most critical quests of developmental and cognitive neuroscientists is the discovery of the origin of human knowledge. One type of knowledge, which is the most important basis of academic achievement, is symbolic number knowledge: children understand each number word is associated with a respective quantity. Children initially develop this understanding of the meaning of the numbers around 2-3 years old. Uncovering the underlying mechanism of symbolic number knowledge leads to better insights about cognitive development and individual differences in humans. In a longer perspective, this understanding might help for earlier diagnoses and more effective interventions in children at risk for learning disorders, particularly developmental dyscalculia (i.e., mathematical disability). In a longitudinal project, neural correlates of acquisition of symbolic number knowledge will be tracked in preschoolers from age 3 to 5 years. Functional organization of particular brain regions such as intraparietal sulci and functional connectivity between these brain regions will be measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), as one of the most appropriate neuroimaging techniques in young children.

PhD, Psychology - University of Chicago
Examining striatal-mediated cognitive function in patients with substance use and obsessive-compulsive disorders
Supervisor(s): Dr. Penny MacDonald, Dr. Ali Khan, Dr. Adrian OwenSubstance use disorder (SUD) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are common psychiatric illnesses categorized by abnormal thoughts (i.e., cravings or obsessions) that motivate habitual behaviors and can cause distress and dysfunction. Prior studies have found that patients with SUD and OCD have abnormalities in brain regions involved in learning and reward processing (e.g., the striatum), specifically those that rely on the neurotransmitter dopamine. Notably, these same regions are heavily affected in Parkinson’s disease (PD), either because of the disease itself or because of the treatment. Our research takes a novel approach to studying SUD and OCD by using techniques that have been developed in studies of PD patients and healthy controls, like structural and functional MRI and pharmacological manipulations of dopamine. The goal of this project is to uncover the neural basis for symptoms that are shared across striatum-involved disorders by using similar methods and comparing results from patients with SUD, OCD, and PD. This approach has the potential to inform more effective treatments.

PhD, Neuroscience - Vanderbilt University
Executive functions of numerical information in single-subjects at 7-Tesla
Supervisor(s): Dr. Daniel Ansari, Dr. Ravi MenonOne quarter of the population has such difficulty learning mathematics that it impairs their ability to use information effectively in adult life. What causes some students to struggle with math? Brain imaging research has begun to shed light on how the brain processes numerical information. However, little is known about how this information is integrated across the brain systems important for math learning, such as memory and attention. With this fellowship, I will conduct a series of studies that provide detailed information about the brain mechanisms that support math skills. First, using ultra-high field 7T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), I will begin to answer questions about how the brain solves math problems at the individual level. This is an important advance because behavioural research shows that children with math learning difficulties are very different from one another. Second, I will investigate the possibility of subtypes of math learning disability with children who have been identified to need math remediation. To do this, I will identify subgroups of individuals with similar cognitive profiles and compare neural signatures of these cognitive profiles. Research in this area will pave the way to improved pedagogical techniques, diagnosis of learning disabilities, and remediation of deficits.
Former BrainsCAN Fellows

Assistant Professor
Rotman Research Institute (Baycrest)
University of Toronto
BrainsCAN Fellow (2018 - 2020)
PhD, Psychology - University of Leipzig, Germany

Financial Institution/Industry
BrainsCAN Fellow (2018 - 2019)
Uncovering the neural representations of the intentions that drive action, and the role of intentional action in social settings
Supervisor(s): Jody Culham, Mel Goodale
PhD, Psychology (Cognitive Science) - University of British Columbia

Assistant Professor
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour
Radboud University, The Netherlands
The Neurobiology of Autobiographical Memory and Emotion Socialization in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Supervisor(s): Dr. Ryan Stevenson, Dr. Elizabeth Hayden
PhD, Neuroscience - University of British Columbia

University of Adelaide
BrainsCAN Fellow (2019 - 2020)
Defining nutritional influences on neural network structure and function across development
Supervisor(s): Dr. Lisa Saksida, Dr. Ravi Menon
PhD, Behavioural Neuroscience - Cardiff University