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Psychiatry Research
The Department of Psychiatry is actively engaged in conducting innovative and relevant research to improve mental health outcomes in children and adolescents. Learn more about our research activities below.
Neuropsychiatric Research Unit
Research conducted through the neuropsychiatric research unit is dedicated to the understanding and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD, OCD, Tics, and Tourette's Syndrome by examining both the genetics underlying these disorders, as well as the behavioural and cognitive traits that influence development. Our research uses a combination of behavioural, academic, genetic and cognitive methods, and involves working with both typically-developing and clinical populations of children and youth.
Spit for Science 2
We successfully recruited 40,000 children and youth visiting the Ontario Science Centre to become Junior Scientists as part of our research project called Spit for Science. We have collected up to 10 million data points on each participant, including: health and mental health information, cognitive and behavioural data, environmental data from postal codes, social determinants of health, genetic information from saliva and oral microbiome information. Recruitment for this study is now closed.
The aim of this study is to better understand how genes work with the environment to impact mental and physical health of children and adolescents.
CHILD-BRIGHT
Virtual Reality (VR) Assessments and Intervention: Novel intervention for mental health
In collaboration with a national leader in medical engineering and technology, our team is creating novel virtual reality tools for assessment and intervention of cognitive trait (executive functions) common in neurodevelopmental and brain-based disorders.
POND
The POND Network brings together a multidisciplinary team of scientists, clinicians, engineers and community stakeholders who share the goal of improving the long-term outcomes for children with ASD, ADHD, OCD and ID.
The POND Network hopes to:
- Increase awareness and knowledge around neurodevelopmental disorders
- Support Ontario’s health researchers, clinicians and policy-makers in their efforts to better understand and implement evidence-based treatments for these conditions
- Improve health outcomes and quality of life for children and youth with neurodevelopmental disorders in Ontario, Canada and around the world
IN-ROADS Initiative
We know that mental health outcomes (e.g., the results of treatment) to date are poorly defined with little standardization across both clinical practice and research, making it difficult to identify the best or most effective treatment for various mental health concerns. This is the case with adolescent depression. In other areas of healthcare, the development of a core outcome set (COS), which is a set of outcomes that should be measured and reported in all clinical trials, has led to better outcome selection and measurement across research studies and this has led to better understanding which treatments are best for which patients.
The IN-ROADS (International Network for Research Outcomes in Adolescent Depression) Initiative is planning to develop a core outcome set for adolescent depression studies. With this goal, we will seek out input from stakeholders including active engagement of patients and their caregivers to ensure what outcomes matter most to patients and their caregivers are included in the final core outcome set for adolescent depression.
DAGSY Clinic Research
The DAGSY (Developmental Assessment of Genetically Susceptible Youth) Clinic within Ambulatory Psychiatry provides comprehensive one-time consultations for children identified as carriers of genetic risk variants associated with neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions. The interdisciplinary clinic team conducts integrated psychiatric, psychological and developmental evaluations, to obtain a detailed profile of strengths and weaknesses of the child. Following assessment, families receive recommendations that include information on the genetic condition relevant to behaviour and development, concrete strategies to address current behavioural or learning issues and strategies to minimize future mental health risks. If available, research opportunities are discussed with parents.
CLIMB Clinic Research
Research through the CLIMB (Children’s Integrated Mood and Body) Clinic is focused on understanding the link between depression and heart disease as children and adolescents with depression are more likely as adults to have serious heart disease. The focus of this research program is to understand why this happens and what we can do about it. For example, as part of this clinical research program we are examining the ways in which diet and activity can affect inflammation, blood vessels and mood.