All Studies
Virtual Realities: Sensation, perception and cognition
Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)
Our research group is interested in determining how the mind and brain are impacted by exposure to virtual environments. The purpose of this study is to determine if there are differences in the way different people process virtual environments and whether there are individual differences in the way these experiences affect the way we think about, sense, perceive or interact with the real world.
Both male and female
18 years old to 45 years old
Healthy Volunteers
Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB) & Robarts Research Institute (RRI)
To navigate and act in the world, we rely on our ability to understand what others are doing. We recognize others’ actions, and we use words to describe and communicate about them. This study will investigate what is different and what is shared in how the brain processes actions that are seen (by viewing videos) and read about (by reading sentences). This will allow us to understand how action understanding happens in the brain.
Both male and female
18 years old to 45 years old
Healthy Volunteers
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
Advanced hearing tests with amplification
Elborn College (EC)
Hearing tests typically include measuring the softest sound that can be detected in a soundproof booth. While this test is a good first indicator of someone's hearing, additional hearing skills may be needed to understand in real-world environments (such as an echoey room). Advanced hearing tests include the measurement of hearing the speed of changes in sound, the pitch of sound, gaps in sound, matching of sound between ears, the locations of sound, and the ability to process information from the two ears. We will correlate hearing aid outcome measures with these advanced hearing tests and will attempt to assess whether hearing aid benefit differs among groups of participants who vary in their hearing abilities. The results may help to explain variability in hearing aid outcomes across participants who have the same hearing test results on the current clinical hearing tests.
Both male and female
18+ years old
Volunteers with and without
hearing loss
Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB) & Robarts Research Institute (RRI)
The human dopamine system develops steadily from childhood through to adulthood, peaking in adolescence. During this time, we see substantial growth in certain dopamine brain areas, which correspond with changes in dopamine-related behaviours and personality traits, such as decision-making and impulsivity. There is a growing interest to see what changes in these areas we may observe throughout adolescence and early adulthood and how this may lead to changes in behaviour. With this in mind, we are interested in using cutting-edge, high-strength magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to observe these small but significant developmental changes and see how they may relate to dopamine-mediated behaviours such as decision-making and reward-learning.
Both male and female
12 years old to 30 years old
Healthy Volunteers
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 brain stimulation on beat perception and motor performance
Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)
Music is often associated with a desire to move. The goal of the study is to understand how different brain areas contribute to different aspects of rhythm perception in music and motor performance using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).
Both male and female
18 years old to 45 years old
Healthy Volunteers
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
Evaluating the effects of meditation on sleep quality and cognition
Online
Meditation is a practice which has gained popularity in the public eye, and many have argued that it can improve sleep quality and cognitive function. This study aims to evaluate these relationships over 8 weeks.
Both male and female
18 years old to 65 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
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
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
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
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
OMMABA: The Open Multimodal Music and Auditory Brain Archive
Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB)
We are searching for both musicians and non-musicians to participate in a behavioural and brain-imaging study about auditory abilities and the brain. This would help create a database focused on auditory cognition, allowing researchers to ask novel questions and understand in the links between neural responses and auditory perception of sound, music, and speech in health and disease.
Both male and female
18 years old to 35 years old
Healthy Volunteers
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
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
Reliability and Validity testing oft he Western Breast Interference Scale
Online & Elborn College (EC)
Women are disproportionately affected by chronic spinal pain (e.g. neck and back pain) compared to men. While many theories attempt to explain the difference, a common one in both the medical and lay fields is that larger breasts cause spinal pain, leading many women to undergo invasive surgeries to relieve their pain. The research to support this practice is not strong, so we are undertaking a new program of research to rigorously explore this phenomenon. The first step is to have a strong measurement tool that can be used for research in this area. We have created such a tool (a patient survey), and this first study is intended to help us ensure that this new tool is good enough to be used in ongoing research into this important area for women's health.
Females
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
Social Competency and Autism Spectrum Disorder
Online
The idea of what social competence is, as well as how individuals tend to portray socially competent behavior, varies from person to person. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder often lack social competence and as a result, have difficulty navigating social situations. This study aims to understand social competence and how it relates to both typically developing and autistic populations.
Both male and female
16+ years old
Please view full study 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
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
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
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
