Friday, April 20, 2018

Colloquium Lecture

12:00 PM to 1:30 PM

CVC Danto Auditorium 

 

Free to attend

Jonathan Downar, MD, PhD, FRCPC and Stephan Taylor, MD

Dr Jonathan Downar serves as the Co-Director of the MRI-Guided rTMS Clinic at University Health Network, and also holds the position of Scientist at the Toronto Western Research Institute. He completed a BSc in biology at McGill University, followed by a PhD in neuroimaging at the University of Toronto with Dr. Karen Davis, before obtaining his medical degree from the University of Calgary in 2005. He then returned to Toronto for his psychiatry residency training, during which he also completed a research fellowship in neuroeconomics with Dr. Read Montague at Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Downar joined the Department of Psychiatry at UHN on completion of his residency in 2010. Shortly thereafter, he established the MRI-Guided rTMS Clinic, with a mandate to accept referrals from the community as a clinical resource, while simultaneously conducting translational research into improving the efficacy, cost, access, and range of indications for non-invasive brain stimulation in psychiatric illness. Over the last 5 years, rTMS at UHN has expanded to 4 stimulation suites and 18 full-time staff. As of October, 2015, the clinic has received over 1600 community referrals and delivered over 20 000 sessions of stimulation. The clinic currently sees some 40-60 patients a day, making it one of the busiest in North America.

Dr. Downar's research work focuses on using neuroimaging to identify better targets for rTMS across a wider range of conditions, and on finding markers to predict the best treatment parameters for individual patients presenting for treatment. His work has been published in Biological Psychiatry, Neuropsychopharmacology, Brain Stimulation, and Nature Neuroscience. He currently holds peer-reviewed funding from CIHR, Brain Canada, the Klarman Foundation, and the Edgestone Foundation.

 

Dr. Taylor is a professor of psychiatry and Associate Chair for Research and Research Regulatory Affairs in the Department of Psychiatry; and an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. His work focuses on psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia, obsessive-complusive disorder), and he uses brain mapping technologies (functional MRI, MRS, event related potentials, positron emission tomograhy) to understand and treat the pathophysiology of these conditions. His work has also investigated processes and neurocircuits relevant to these diseases, such as the brain systems which underlie emotion, performance monitoring, and cognitive-emotional interactions. In addition, he uses brain stimulation technologies (transcranial magnetic stimulation, deep brain stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation) to target and treat neurocircuits relevant to psychiatric conditions.

Clinically, he has extensive experience with the treatment of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders, directing the Program for Risk Evaluation and Prevention (PREP), designed to identify youth at risk of serious mental illness such as schizophrenia and conduct research into the early stages of psychosis. He also directs the Psychiatric Neuromodulation Program, which provides clinical treatment with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and he conducts research using TMS and deep brain stimulation to translate the understanding of brain pathology gained through neuroimaging studies to develop and refine new treatments.

He is a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and serves on several journal editorial boards, as well as numerous NIH review panels and advisory boards.  He is a past present of the Psychiatric Research Society.  He has a B.S. from Northwestern University and an M.D. (1988) from the Washington University School of Medicine.

Dr. Downar's Lecture Title: "More Success with rTMS: Recent Translational Breakthroughs"

Dr. Taylor's Lecture Title: “Brain stimulation in depression: What have we learned about what’s going on?”

Hosting Faculty: Sagar Parikh, MD, FRCPC

Both speakers have nothing to disclose.

CME Available: Yes