Studies related to neurodegenerative conditions
Mobile Neuroimaging and Mobility in Parkinson's Disease
Thames Hall
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.
Age 55+
Diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease
Can walk independently
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
Western Interdisciplinary Research Building (WIRB);Robarts Research Institute (RRI)
There are no therapies that slow, halt, or reverse (i.e., disease modifying therapies) the progression of Parkinson’s Disease (PD)—the fastest-growing neurological disease in the world. Biomarkers are tests that can be used to diagnose or follow the progression of diseases. The goal of this project is to establish definitive diagnostic tests of PD, where none currently exist, and to objectively measure disease progression using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a widespread tool in medical research and practice. This means PD patients could be diagnosed and treated earlier, even those patients located where they do not have easy, or any, access to PD specialists.
Both male and female
18 years old to 80 years old
Healthy Volunteers & Volunteers with Parkinson's disease
Robarts Research Institute (RRI)
The claustrum is a small, thin and elongated brain area. It has been found to respond to pain, which is a salient perceptual experience (i.e., a feeling that is very noticeable) and requires attention. It remains unclear how the claustrum controls brain networks during attention tasks and or pain. In the current study, we will use high magnetic field (7T) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which is a neuroimaging method that measures the activation of the brain with high detail, to evaluate claustrum function in various conditions.
Both male and female
18 years old to 70 years old
Healthy Volunteers
PET/MR Imaging of Brain Oxygen Use
Lawson Health Research Institute (LHRI)
You are invited to participate in a study investigating our ability to image how much oxygen the brain uses. Oxygen consumption is key to brain health and we want to demonstrate how easily we can be measure it in healthy people before applying the method to dementia patients.
Both male and female
18 years old to 60 years old
Healthy Volunteers
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