Project Overview
The Centre for Neurotechnological Innovation to Application (CRANIA) transforms routine neurosurgical procedures into valuable research opportunities to advance brain science and treatment. Currently, when patients undergo procedures like deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease or surgery for epilepsy, the unique brain data captured during these interventions often remains isolated in specialized hospitals, limiting scientific discovery. CRANIA addresses this bottleneck by creating an integrated research network across Toronto's major hospitals: University Health Network, SickKids, and Sunnybrook, capturing standardized data from over 2,500 annual neurosurgeries. The platform combines advanced imaging technologies, including specialized 0.5 Tesla MRI systems that can safely image patients with brain implants, 3 Tesla and 7 Tesla MRI for detailed brain mapping, and magnetoencephalography for measuring millisecond-level brain activity. This infrastructure enables breakthrough research across multiple neurological conditions. For Parkinson's disease, researchers can visualize how deep brain stimulation electrodes interact with brain circuits, optimizing programming to improve symptoms like freezing of gait. In epilepsy, the platform maps brain networks to predict which patients will respond to vagus nerve stimulation. For brain cancer, focused ultrasound opens the bloodbrain barrier to enhance drug delivery. Beyond immediate clinical applications, CRANIA opens the door for new and exciting neuroscience research. While surgical expertise remains concentrated in specialized centres, any Canadian researcher can access the resulting brain recording, imaging data, and clinical metadata through establish open repositories while the platform retains the next generation through the world's first integrated neuromodulation education program spanning engineering, medicine, and neuroscience. By treating each neurosurgical procedure as a data generation opportunity rather than an isolated clinical event, CRANIA ensures that insights from Canadian patients contribute to global understanding of brain function and accelerate development of new therapies. This approach transforms Canada's clinical excellence into sustained scientific discovery, keeping innovations and talent within the country while improving patient outcomes.
Partners & Donors
University Health Network
