Mission
We innovate precision circuit-based treatments for youth with complex mood and anxiety disorders.
Vision
We will be a national and international hub for developing and implementing interventional psychiatry techniques to promote health and resilience in youth.
Values
Compassion · Integrity · Collaboration · Excellence
Research
Our work is organized around three aims:
Personalize — Understanding how best to personalize the neuromodulation experience for youth. We are working on discovering biomarkers and also surveying youth, families, and clinicians to identify the most important unanswered questions in the field.
Synergize — Exploring how combining treatments can produce better outcomes than either alone. Current work includes pairing TMS with virtual reality reward training to address the loss of pleasure that often underlies youth depression.
Build — Piloting new models of care that make treatment more accessible. We are studying whether TMS can be integrated into inpatient care — delivering multiple sessions per day to fit within an admission — and into day treatment programs, where combining TMS with psychotherapy may amplify benefits for both.
Active Studies
Can we detect changes in emotional processing after one session of rTMS in youth with depression?
We are testing whether early neurophysiological signals can serve as a biomarker to predict treatment response — and ultimately guide how we personalize TMS for each patient.
Funding: Norris Scholar Award
Can we enhance the effects of rTMS for loss of pleasure by controlling for mental state at the time of stimulation?
We are pairing rTMS with a virtual reality program that trains patients to savour rewarding experiences, testing whether this combination produces better outcomes for the anhedonia that underlies many cases of youth depression.
Funding: Labatt Family Network for Research on the Biology of Depression
Is an inpatient youth rTMS treatment pathway feasible?
The standard TMS protocol — once daily, five days a week, six weeks — can be logistically challenging for youths and families. We are testing whether an accelerated protocol (multiple sessions per day) is feasible, accessible, and acceptable to youth and their families as part of an inpatient stay.
Funding: Sunnybrook AFP Innovation Fund
TMS day treatment program for youth with depression
For youth already attending a day treatment program, daily TMS is logistically feasible and may work synergistically with the psychotherapy they are receiving. We are assessing the feasibility of this integrated model and its impact on depression and anxiety.
Funding: Reasons for Hope Fund, University of Toronto