Skip to content
Project Directory
  • Français
Donate Now
  • Français
  • About
    • What We Do
    • Leadership
    • Team
    • Publications
    • Careers
  • Diseases/Disorders
    • One Brain
    • ALS
    • Alzheimer’s
    • Autism
    • Brain Cancer
    • Brain Injury
    • Epilepsy
    • Mental Illness
    • Multiple Sclerosis
    • Parkinson’s
    • Stroke
    • Other
  • Research
    • Programs
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Program Partners
    • Announcements
  • Impact
  • Ways To Give
    • Giving to Research
    • How You Can Help
    • Events

Funded Grants

Back to results

Adolescent Mental Health

Project Overview

Most mental disorders begin in adolescence; however, there are many gaps in our understanding of youth mental health. Clinical and policy gaps arise from our current inability to predict, from amongst all youth who experience mild behavioural disturbances, who will go on to develop an illness, what that illness will be, and what can be done to change its course and prevent its worsening to a serious mental illness (SMI). Many other gaps exist in our understanding of how risk factors set off neurobiological changes that determine who will develop a SMI. Dr. Addington and her team’s overarching goals are (i) to be able to identify youth at risk before they develop a SMI so that intervention can begin as soon as possible and (ii) to understand the triggers of SMI. They will follow a large group of youth who are at different stages of risk for developing SMI for one year. We will assess a wide range of clinical and psychosocial factors in order to determine ones that can be used to predict key outcomes, such as increasing disability, secondary substance misuse, not participating in education or employment, new self-harm and worsening physical health, as well as SMI development. They will then perform brain scans and assess blood to see if we can identify any biological factors that may contribute to SMI development in youth. Stress and early cannabis use, both major concerns for today’s youth, may play major roles in poor outcomes and later mental illness. However, there are many other factors involved and we will be exploring other risk factors of SMI. Finally, using all of the team’s results, they will develop prediction models that will help determine how these risk factors interact in predicting negative outcomes for youth.

Principal Investigator

Jean Addington , Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary

Team Members

Glenda MacQueen, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary

Signe Bray, University of Calgary

Jonathan Downar, Toronto Western Research Institute, University of Toronto

Sidney H. Kennedy, University Health Network

Benjamin Goldstein, Sunnybrook Research Institute

JianLi Wang, University of Calgary

Catherine Lebel, University of Calgary

Partners and Donors

Hotchkiss Brain Institute

Project Ongoing

Adolescent Mental Health

  • Program Type

    Team grants

  • Area of research

    Mental Health

  • Disease Area

    Mental illness

  • Competition

    2014 MIRI Team Grants

  • Province

    Alberta

  • Start Date

    2015

  • Total Grant Amount

    $1,387,285

  • Health Canada Contribution

    $693,643

Contact Us

1200 McGill College Avenue
Suite 1600, Montreal, Quebec
H3B 4G7

+1 (514) 989-2989 info@braincanada.ca

Playing with Marbles Podcast

Join us and take a journey to the real last great frontier – the brain.

Listen

Subscribe to Brain News

Receive our monthly electronic newsletter with updates on funded projects, upcoming events and breakthroughs in brain research.

Sign Up

Territorial acknowledgement

The offices of Brain Canada Foundation are located on the traditional, ancestral territory of the Kanien'kehá:ka Peoples, a place which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst nations. We honour and pay respect to elders past, present and emerging, and dedicate ourselves to moving forward in the spirit of partnership, collaboration, and reconciliation. In our work, we focus our efforts on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, particularly those that pertain to improving health for Indigenous Peoples and that focus on advancing our own learning on Indigenous issues.

© 2023 Brain Canada Foundation

Registration number: 89105 2094 RR0001

  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

Design by Field Trip & Co