All Studies

fMRI and Cognitive Testing in Neurotypical Controls

Robarts Research Institute (RRI)

We are looking for healthy controls to take part in a study of brain imaging and cognition in epilepsy patients! Epilepsy affects one in 100 Canadians and is the second most common nervous system disorder, after stroke. About one-third of patients with epilepsy are considered refractory meaning that their seizures are not well-controlled with current medications. These patients generally experiences decreased quality of life, increased unemployment, and comorbid psychiatric illnesses. This study is part of a large program of research that aims to understand common underlying causes of brain dysfunction and develop novel approaches to treatment that might be relevant to epilepsy.

MRI measurements of OEF

St. Joseph's Hospital B5-233c

Despite only comprising 2% of body weight, the brain uses 20% of the oxygen you inhale. Because of its high energy demands, maintaining oxygen consumption is key to maintaining brain health and function. This study is focused on assessing how well oxygen consumption in the brain can be measured by MRI. It will be conducted on a PET/MRI system to compare the MR images of oxygen consumption to those obtained with the gold standard, positron emission tomography (PET).

Narrative Engagement in Children

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Children routinely engage in listening activities where they are required to sustain their attention and listen carefully so that they can incorporate things they have heard to understand future events. This includes classroom listening, story time with family members, or social communication with friends. In the current study, we are hoping to study how children maintain their attention in these types of listening scenarios, and how this relates to things like working memory across children.

Neural Correlates of Walking Initiation

Western Interdiscliplinary Research Building (WIRB) and Parkwood Institute (PI)

Walking is a daily activity requiring intricate coordination and sensory processing. In the real world, we need to adapt our walking to different conditions. For example, we may walk on soft unstable surfaces, or rough surfaces. We may start walking forward, or diagonally. This study aims to investigate brain activation patterns that occur in response to different complexities and under different sensory conditions. Additionally, we would like to compare these activation patterns with walking’s characterstics. To do this, we hope to investigate your brain’s electrical activity and the changes in its blood circulation as you plan and perform different walking tasks. The walking tasks will range from simple (e.g., walking forward) to more complex (e.g., walking diagonally). Different sensory conditions will be involved, such as walking on a special surface like turf, and gentle electrical impulses delivered to the feet. In summary, this study investigates brain activation patterns during walking under varying conditions, emphasizing sensory information and motor planning complexity.

Autobiographical Recall and Altered Audio

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

In this study, the researchers are collecting data about the ways in which popular music can evoke memories from the past. If you participate, you will listen to U.S. Billboard popular songs from your youth (7-19 years of age) and answer questions about what if any memories they evoke (autobiographical memories). The study will take place in person at a time of your convenience in one 90-120-minute session.

Improving sleep via phase-locked auditory stimulation in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Many older adults start to experience poorer sleep quality as they age, which can be associated with worse memory and cognition. Previous studies have shown that sleep can be improved when quiet sounds are presented at the right times during slow-wave sleep. We are interested in whether we can improve sleep and associated memory and cognitive function using these sounds in older adults.

Both male and female

60+ years old

Healthy Volunteers and Volunteers with MCI

Effect of music on listening test anxiety

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Many language learners struggle with test anxiety when completing language assessment tasks. One potential approach to cope with anxiety entails listening to relaxing music. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which listening to relaxing music can have a beneficial effect on language learnersˇ test anxiety and performance on an academic English listening test.

Both male and female

Students at Western University

Speak English as a second language

Assessing the Use of Music and Brain Stimulation in Parkinson's

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a debilitating disorder with motor and cognitive symptoms, including gait (or walk) disturbances, which are related to falls. Traditional treatments, including pharmacotherapy and deep brain stimulation, improve motor symptoms, but have limited effects on gait impairments, and also have side effects that can worsen gait deficits. There is evidence that Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS) through music improves gait, as does transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a type of non-invasive brain stimulation. Therefore, this study aims to understand how brain stimulation can influence movement, especially when combined with music.

Understanding Fitness and Hearing Relationship in Adults with Hearing Loss

National Centre for Audiology (Elborn College)

We want to understand the relationship betweem hearing, cognition and fitness in older adults with hearing loss. Previous studies have looked at how much a clinical hearing test, called an audiogram, improves following completion of a fitness program. However, nobody has measured if this improvement translates into real-world hearing tasks like hearing in noise.

ADNIRS

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Through this study, we are aiming to understand the mental abilities of patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) while watching short movies. Previous research has shown that watching an engaging movie can lead to specific patterns of brain activity that can tell us about the mental abilities of the viewer. In this study, patients with AD, healthy older adults, and healthy young adults, will view short movies while undergoing functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) imaging. By investigating differences or similarities in brain activity related to movie-watching in these groups, we can learn about the mental abilities and experiences of patients with AD. Findings from this study may have important practical and ethical implications for the patients’ standard of care and quality of life.

Both male and female

65+ years old

Healthy Volunteers

An Eye Tracking and EEG Investigation of Reading in Monolinguals and Bilinguals across the Adult Lifespan

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

The aim of this study is to examine how reading behaviour and brain activity is associated in bilingual and monolingual adults. This study will use reading measures and measures of brain activation using an electroencephalogram (EEG) to examine differences in the way bilingual people and monolingual people read. People who are fluent in multiple languages tend to categorize language information differently than those who are fluent in only one language. By measuring brain activity during reading in adults, we can better understand how word information is processed and how it relates to reading skills.

Both male and female

18 years old to 75 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Assessing speech and sound perception using brain imaging

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Age-related hearing issues affect a significant proportion of Canadian adults above age 60. Some of these hearing issues include perceiving sounds at moderate intensities to be unpleasantly loud, finding sounds to be abnormally distracting, and, most importantly, experiencing difficulty understanding speech when there is background noise. We are interested in better understanding what causes these symptoms in order to motivate future treatments.

Both male and female

17 years old to 90 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Auditory ERPs and early language

Elborn College (EC)

Proper auditory input during childhood is crucial to the development of high functioning language skills later in life. We are interested in how our brains response to simple tones is related to language skills in childhood.

Both male and female

12 months old to 62 months old

Healthy Volunteers

Behavioural studies of human perception and hand actions

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

We are studying how people use vision to perceive objects in order to perform hand actions (e.g. grasping or tool use).

Both male and female

17 years old to 55 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Behavioural studies of rhythm and music perception

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB), Social Science Centre (SSC), or Robarts Research Institute (RRI)

Music is an important part of human experience that can affect, memory, mood, and our movement. In turn, moving with a rhythm can change the way we hear or see it relative to when we do not move. The purpose of this study is to investigate how humans perceive rhythm and music, and how rhythm and music might change our experience of or memory for other sights and sounds.

Both male and female

17+ years old

Healthy Volunteers

Brain Variability in Children with Previous Infantile Hydrocephalus

Robarts Research Institute (RRI)

The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the differences in brain networks between healthy children and children who have experienced hydrocephalus as infants.

Both male and female

4 years old to 13 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Breath Control and Mindfulness for Post-Concussion Anxiety and Depression: A Feasibility Study

Online

Recovery from a concussion is sometimes complicated by persistent symptoms and can include feelings of anxiety and depression. Individuals that experience anxiety and depression show delay in their recovery from concussion. If treatments are developed that can help individual process their feelings of anxiety and depression, improving their mental health, they will have the potential of a timelier recovery from their concussion injury. Breath control and mindfulness exercises are two techniques used to treat anxiety and depression. These techniques help regulate the nervous system and calm the brain, allowing the individual to process their feelings of anxiety and depression. This has been shown to reduce concussion-related symptoms in some individuals. This 8-week feasibility study will evaluate the implementation and compliance of an online guided breathing and mindfulness treatment program for individuals experiencing anxiety or depression symptoms following a concussion injury.

Both male and female

18 to 65 years old

Physician-diagnosed concusson ≥ 4 months before beginning the study

Effects of voice familiarity

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Is the voice of that special someone also special to your brain? Do we process familiar voices in a way that is different than the voices of strangers? We are looking for couples interested in helping us answer this question!

Both male and female

18 years old to 40 years old

Couples

Electroencephalography and behavioral studies of speech and sound perception

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Humans without hearing loss have the extraordinary ability to listen and understand speech or other sounds even when there is background noise. We are interested in understanding how the brain helps us make sense of sounds in complex listening situations.

Both male and female

17 years old to 35 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Healthy volunteers needed: research on emotions

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB) & Robarts Research Institute (RRI)

We often find ourselves dealing with tricky situations where emotions in ourselves and others run high. Our research group is interested in finding out how the mind and brain function to produce and control emotions. In this study, we are particularly interested in investigating whether emotions triggered by various stimuli (e.g., sounds or images) affect general problem-solving abilities, judgments, and cognitive function.

Both male and female

18 years old to 45 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Impact of reward on feedback control

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Rewarding outcomes have a powerful capacity to shape how the brain processes information. Nearly every aspect of human cognition is affected by it: how we make decisions, how we remember events, what we direct our attention toward, and how we control our body. We are interested in how rewarding outcomes impact how our brain processes sensory information to control and stabilize the arm in different situations.

Both male and female

18 years old to 50 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Investigating Reading and Speech with fMRI

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB) & Robarts Research Institute (RRI)

Reading is a means of accessing the growing technological and literate world. Although the skill of reading is essential in our society, not everyone finds learning how to read easy. We are interested in how the brains of skilled adult readers automatically recognize both the sound and meaning of words they see.

Both male and female

18 years old to 65 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Joint attention in low-functioning children with autism spectrum disorder: a combined behavioural and functional near infrared spectroscopy study

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

The Developing Brain lab is looking for children aged 7-10 years old to take part in a study which examines brain activity during viewing of emotional faces.

Both male and female

7 years old to 10 years old
& their parents

Children with ASD
& typically developing children

Learning optimal stiffness during arm reaches

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

When someone steps onto the ice rink for the first time, they stiffen immediately to prevent a fall. In contrast, professional hockey players move with ease and fluidity. This underlies an important, yet underappreciated aspect of learning motor skills: adjusting the stiffness of your body. We are interested in how the brain acquires optimal stiffness patterns, so as to produce expert motor skills.

Both male and female

18 years old to 50 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Memory and motivation

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

We are interested in how people recall information and recognize familiar items. Specifically, we are examining how people make memory judgements with various stimuli and how this relates to pupil dilation and ultimately nervous system function.

Both male and female

18 years old to 35 years old

Healthy Volunteers

MIMIC Study

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB), Robarts Research Institute (RRI), University Hospital (UH), or Victoria Hospital (VH)

Advances in life-saving medical technology have dramatically increased survival rates for patients after severe brain injury. The recovery and continued care of these individuals often require extensive stays in intensive care units (ICUs), where critical treatment decisions are made to maximize the likelihood of recovering consciousness and cognitive function. These decisions are typically based on unreliable behavioural responses, rather than on objective and quantifiable indicators. Our goal is to combine functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), advanced electroencephalography (EEG), and time-resolved functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to improve diagnosis and prognosis in the ICU. To do so, we are seeking healthy control volunteers to image brain activity to compare to the imaging we will do in the patient population.

Both male and female

18+ years old

Healthy Volunteers

Mood and Eating Patterns in Adults

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Do you struggle with out of control eating episodes? The PEAR Lab is looking for female volunteers (aged 18-50 years) who engage in binge eating to participate in a study on mood and eating behaviours.

Females

18 to 50 years old

Healthy Volunteers including those who Engage in Binge Eating

Movement, performance, and ADHD

Althouse Faculty of Education Building (FEB)

ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects the daily lives of many children. An environment where this disorder displays itself more than others is in the classroom. A perspective that is starting to gain some traction is the use of physical activity to help improve classroom learning. We are conducting a study to identify how movement during learning impacts performance and brain activity in children with and without ADHD.

Both male and female

8 years old to 12 years old

Children with ADHD &
children without ADHD

Narrative Abilities and Working Memory

Western Elborn College (EC) or Online

Narrative skills are the ability to tell a story. Narrative skills require complex language skills including being able to tell a story that makes sense (also known as coherence) and is grammatically correct (also known as cohesion). Importantly, for school-aged children, narrative skills are critical for later literacy and school achievement. The purpose of this study is to understand how we could promote narrative skills, for example, using different kinds of questions to draw attention to different aspects of the story.

Both male and female

7 years old & 8 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Neurofeedback Study

Parkwood Institute (PI)

Stroke is a leading cause of disability worldwide. Imagining movement has shown promise for movement rehabilitation after stroke. Neurofeedback with functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) may improve the quality of imagery, thereby improving functional outcomes. The proposed study aims to determine whether fNIRS can be used as a neurofeedback tool in stroke survivors.

Both male and female

19+ years old

Healthy Volunteers &
volunteers with stroke history

Online Narrative Engagement

Online

We are increasingly turning to interesting stories for entertainment and education, including podcasts, audiobooks, or online education. In this study, we are interested in how children engage with these stories over their duration.

Both male and female

9 years old to 12 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Peer Study

Westminster Hall (WH)

The PEAR Lab at Western University is conducting a study to examine associations between peer relationships and eating disorders among female adolescents.

Females

13 to 17 years old

Healthy volunteers and volunteers with eating disorders

Perceptual organization of music

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

The “auditory scene” is the term used to refer to the heard environment, by analogy with the “visual scene”. It usually refers to a situation in which multiple auditory objects (sources of sound) are simultaneously present, like holding a conversation with a friend at a crowded party. We are interested to understand how musical training affects the forming of auditory perception in such auditory scenes.

Both male and female

18 years old to 55 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Sensory processing in development and in autism

Online & Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

How we perceive the world greatly impacts how we interact with it. Sensory perception is known to change throughout development and to be different in children with developmental disorders such as autism. This study will explore the developmental trajectory of how we perceive the world, how the development of sensory processing differs in autism, and what the neural underpinnings of this typical and atypical development are.

Both male and female

Children 4+ years old
& adults

Please view study page for details

State-of-the-art clinical assessment of hand function in stroke and cervical spondylotic myelopathy

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

It is hard to over-state the importance of our hands in daily life. From writing on a piece of paper, to playing the guitar, our hands are the primary means through which we manipulate the environment around us. Nowhere is the importance of the hand most apparent than after an injury from conditions such as stroke or cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM). Despite the importance of the hand, only basic clinical assessment tools are available to evaluate hand function, either to measure impairment after injury, or to assess improvements during rehabilitation. The purpose of this study is to test a newly developed device that can sensitively measure fingertip forces across all 5 fingers and along all movement directions in patients with reduced hand function. We will also test the device in a group of healthy adults.

Both male and female

18+ years old

Healthy Volunteers

Studies of sleep and language learning

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Sleep helps strengthen memories. A nap or a good night's sleep can improve learning and memory in many different domains. We are interested in understanding how sleep contributes to different aspects of cognition, including language acquisition, as well as memory consolidation in general.

Both male and female

18 years old to 35 years old

Healthy Volunteers

The effects of beat and non-beat factors on gait and the neural mechanisms of beat perception in patients with Parkinson’s disease

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

The purpose of this study is to understand how the areas of the brain that control movement process certain kinds of music. In this study, you will be asked to listen to and rate some music clips, do some rhythm-related behavioral tasks, and walk along to music.

Both male and female

18 years old to 70 years old

Healthy Volunteers & Volunteers with Parkinson's disease

The evaluation of deep learning approaches for the improvement of resolution and detection of neuromelanin (NM) in high field MRI data

Robarts Research Institute (RRI)

Neurodegenerative disorders cause changes to the brain over time. MRI is a powerful tool that has the potential to provide measurements of disease progression and potential treatment effect of disease modifying therapies. Measuring changes, however, can be difficult due to the small size of some brain structures involved. The development of novel MRI scans can aid in the measurement of these changes. MRI scanners with increased field strength (i.e. 7T) improve the resolution of the images but are not available for widespread use. Processing the images to improve quality is a method to create high-resolution images from low-resolution acquisitions. This type of processing has led to more accurate detection of brain structures in MRI data. This study, on healthy human volunteers, aims to compare the data collected at 3T MRI, improved using processing techniques, and compare to high resolution NM-MRI data collected in the same subjects at 7T to validate these processing techniques.

Both male and female

18 years old to 70 years old

Healthy Volunteers

The impact of fear on cognition and social behaviour

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

We are conducting studies examining how the mind and brain function to produce and control emotions. In this study, we are particularly interested in how emotions triggered by emotional scenes and reminders may affect the way you think and make judgements. Unpleasant scenes may impact problem solving and social judgements. We will also investigate whether those effects vary depending on an individual’s unique personality characteristics.

Both male and female

18 to 45 years old

Healthy Volunteers

The neural mechanisms of rhythm and music perception

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB) & Robarts Research Institute (RRI)

Have you ever wondered if how you experience a song or a movie is the same way someone else experiences that song or movie? That is what we are interested in understanding! We will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify and examine the brain areas that examine what happens in your brain when you listen to music.

Both male and female

18 years old to 35 years old

Normal vision and hearing

Typical and Atypical Development of Compensation to Altered Auditory Feedback

Elborn College (EC)

Early detection of speech, language, and hearing disorders is critical for optimizing outcomes. One great challenge is the early detection of developmental language disorder (DLD). Children with DLD struggle to comprehend what is said to them and express themselves verbally. We are interested in studying how the brains of children process what they hear, comparing typically developing children with children with DLD to improve early identification.

Both male and female

5 to 13 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Using Eye Tracking to Study Reading Comprehension

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Reading comprehension is a very important skill as people interact with the world. However, readers differ in their ability to monitor their text understanding and then choose reading behaviours to improve their comprehension. We are interested in how readers with a variety of backgrounds process texts for meaning.

Both male and female

10 to 14 years old &
17 to 35 years old

Healthy Volunteers

Walking at different speeds

Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)

Auditory cues such as music or a metronome can alter walking speed in both healthy and clinical populations. However, it is unclear what characteristics of music alter walking speed. We are interested in how people walk to music to better understand music preferences and individual differences in beat perception in the general population.

Both male and female

18 years old to 40 years old

Healthy Volunteers