Adjunct Scientists

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Research Focus

Ellen Bialystok, Ph.D., FRSC, is Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at York University and Associate Scientist at the Rotman Research Institute of the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1976. Much of her research has focused on the effect of bilingualism on children’s language and cognitive development, showing accelerated mastery of specific cognitive processes for bilingual children. This research has recently been extended to investigations of adult processing and found that lifelong bilingualism protects older adults from cognitive decline with aging. Other research includes studies of literacy acquisition in young children, models of metalinguistic awareness and second-language acquisition, and the development of spatial cognition and its relation to other cognitive abilities. She is the author of 6 books and over 100 scientific papers in journals and books. Among her awards are a Killam Research Fellowship, Walter Gordon Research Fellowship, Dean’s Award for Outstanding Research, and Language Learning Distinguished Scholar in Residence. She has been invited to lecture in universities around the world, covering four continents and numerous countries.

Profile Link: http://research.baycrest.org/ebialystok

Site Director Heart and Stroke Foundation Centre for Stroke Recovery

Director Cognitive Neurology Unit, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Senior scientist (Director) Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Hurvitz Brain Sciences Research Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute

Adjunct Scientist Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Health Sciences

Executive Director Toronto Dementia Research Alliance

Research Focus

As a clinician scientist, I study neurological degeneration and regenerative processes at the integrative level. Specifically, my clinical research has focussed on the cognitive sequelae of stroke and stroke recovery, and the differential diagnosis and monitoring of dementia utilizing concurrent clinical, neuropsychological and neuroimaging measures. I have led multidisciplinary teams in conducting large-group prospective studies with a longitudinal design and labour-intensive acquisition of complex, multidimensional databases. Correlative quantitative neuroimaging provides insight into the biological constraints which are operative in disease progression or recovery. Such information is becoming increasingly important as new treatments come on line for stroke and for dementia, especially given rapid therapeutic advances in neurology in the last decade. It is becoming increasingly evident that Alzheimer’s and Cerebrovascular Disease frequently co-occur in older individuals and have synergistic effects on the clinical expression of dementia. This has beomce a major focus of our research efforts.

An active investigator in clinical trials for dementia and stroke for over 20 years, I have recently been a lead investigator for trials in Vascular Dementia, Severe Alzheimer's Disease and a disease modifying trial for Alzheimer's Disease.

In addition to these clinical studies I also have used experimental approaches aimed primarily at understanding mechanisms which underlie deficits in praxis, visual-spatial function, language, and attention in stroke and in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Using both single-case and group-study designs, I collaborate with leading cognitive neuropsychologists to address theoretical issues in brain-behaviour relationships. In these researches, selective vulnerability of degenerative processes and focal injury from stroke provide naturalistic models of ablation and adaptation in the human brain.

Profile Link: http://research.baycrest.org/sblack

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Profile Link: http://research.baycrest.org/sferber

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Research Focus

My current research focuses on (1) non-invasive interventions for adults with progressive aphasia, a neurodegenerative disorder that deprives people of their ability to communicate, (2) neuroanatomical corelates of successful therapy, and (3) signs of dementia in written and spoken language through computational analysis of online samples.

My current work is supported by the, Ontario Brain Institute, Alzheimer's Association (US), Age-Well, e-CAMPUS, Brain Canada, and Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging.

Profile Link: http://research.baycrest.org/rjokel

Research Focus

My research strives to shed light on how the human auditory system processes sound. This effort has resulted in clinical devices which are used to evaluate hearing in both infants and adults. By way of evaluating neurophysiological correlates of auditory processing key advances in the field of objective audiometry using auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs) have been made. My early work with Dr. Terry Picton helped form a solid foundation for what we have termed the multiple auditory steady-state response (MASTER) technique and demonstrated how the manipulation of several key parameters either improved or degraded the performance of this testing technique. The understanding obtained in these early studies, has recently enabled us to make several advances that have significantly increased the power, speed, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of the technique. Our laboratory has introduced new types of stimuli that evoke more robust responses and thereby permit a more rapid and accurate evaluation of the auditory system's capacity for detecting both frequency modulation and amplitude modulation. The responses evoked by these novel stimuli are positively correlated with an individual's speech processing abilities. The technique may serve to objectively quantify both the processing deficiencies that underlie hearing deficits, and also the efficacy of hearing aid devices in overcoming these deficits.

Profile Link: http://research.baycrest.org/sjohn

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Profile Link: http://research.baycrest.org/skohler

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Research Focus

Quality of life and driving issues in persons with mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

Profile Link: http://research.baycrest.org/gnaglie

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Dr. M. Natasha Rajah received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Toronto, St. George Campus in 2003 and did her post-doctoral training at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley. She was hired as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University in 2005. She is currently a tenured Full Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in, McGill University and Assistant Dean of Career Development. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including the CIHR New Investigator Award, the Haile T. Debas Prize for leadership in EDI, and the Women in Cognitive Science Canada’s Mentorship Prize. In 2020 she was named CIHR Chair for Sex and Gender Research in Neuroscience, Mental Health, and Addiction.  She is Editor in Chief at Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, Associate Editor for Psychological Science, and Senior Editor at Brain Research. She serves on the CIHR Institute of Aging Advisory Board, Canadian Association of Neuroscience Board of Directors, Memory Disorder Research Society (MDRS) Equity Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee, Chairs the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA), Membership Committee and Co-Chairs the CCNA Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) committee. Dr. Rajah’s research in the cognitive neuroscience of episodic memory, aging, and dementia prevention. Her current research focuses on examining sex and gender effects in brain aging and cognitive function, with a focus on cultural diversity and women’s brain health in midlife.
 

Research Focus

• The role of the hippocampus and related brain structures in recent and remote memory
• Neural representation of spatial memory and cognition
• The role of different frontal regions in emotional-cognitive processing

Profile Link: http://research.baycrest.org/srosenbaum

Profile Link: http://research.baycrest.org/ltrainor

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