Research Impact Stories

Brain Canada is proud to announce the 2025 Rising Star Trainee Award recipients, a new cohort of trainees (master’s students, PhD  students and postdoctoral fellows) whose work is advancing our understanding of brain health across Canada.

In 2016, Yasser Iturria-Medina, Ph.D., and his post-doctoral supervisor at the time, Alan Evans, Ph.D., published findings that quietly helped shift how scientists think about Alzheimer’s disease. Today, that work has informed several therapeutic patents and opened the door to a distinct class of drug targets currently being tested on patients around the world. 

Dr. Emma Duerden is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair in neuroscience and learning disorders – applied psychology at Western University. Dr. Franco Vaccarino is professor emeritus at the University of Guelph and former president and vice chancellor. Alison Palmer is the evaluation and special projects lead at Brain Canada Foundation. 

As part of our mission to fund bold brain research, Brain Canada has, together with its donors and partners, supported dozens of large-scale research projects and platforms to develop and apply cutting-edge AI approaches to advance our understanding of the brain and identify solutions for brain diseases and disorders.  

Canada has always invested in brain science, even during fiscal challenges. While others pursue AI dominance through speed and scale, we could lead by putting human cognition at the centre.

On Sunday, October 26th, Riverdale Farm in Toronto came alive with laughter, energy, and purpose as dozens gathered for the first-ever Functional Phil Community Walk.

Ottawa Charity Bike Ride Raises $2,500 for Brain Canada

Face drooping – Arm weakness – Speech difficulty – Time to call for help! The acronym FAST (Face-Arms-Speech-Time) is both a reminder of the early symptoms of stroke and the urgent action necessary. Acute ischemic stroke (AIS) – the most common form of stroke – occurs when a blood vessel to the brain is blocked, starving part of the brain of oxygen.

Mental health conditions affect women differently than men. For example, women are more likely than men to develop anxiety, depression, and traumatic stress-related disorders. Yet only 3% of neuroscience studies are focused on women, and only about 5% include sex in the study design in a way that allows scientists to make comparisons between sexes.

Brain Canada and Brain Changes Initiative recently announced $1.1 million in funding for new brain research in Canada through the Innovation Grants for Research Impact in Traumatic Brain Injury program. Two of the three recipients are focusing on an area of research that has emerged over the last decade: traumatic brain injury (TBI) related to intimate partner violence (IPV).

Medical science has a deadly historical bias problem: until very recently, most studies only included males. The article features Dr. Jeffrey Mogil, and mentions research supported by the 2014 Brain Canada Team Grant he received.