Laboratory of Clinical Psychology and Neuroscience

All the research in our lab is motivated by the desire to better understand schizophrenia, a neuropsychiatric disorder that afflicts one in 100 people and affects far more, since both the patients and their families suffer enormously. Our research focuses on the neural basis of what are considered "behavioural markers of risk" for schizophrenia, that is, cognitive and behavioural normalities that are found at high rates in schizophrenic patients and in their first-degree relatives but at low rates in the general population. These subtle abnormalities are thought to reflect genetic differences in brain function that are related to schizophrenia and may predispose one to the development of the disorder. Examples include abnormal eye movements, difficulty sustaining attention, impairments in verbal memory and schizotypal features (subclinical schizophrenia symptoms).

People in our lab study the neurophysiology of eye movements , abnormal eye movements and other behavioural markers of risk and schizophrenia itself. Current projects, which focus on the elucidating the neural basis of behavioural markers, include neuroimaging and TMS studies of normal eye movements, neuroimaging studies of relatives of schizophrenic patients with and without markers of risk, and a study of skeletomotor control in people with eye movement abnormalities. We are also studying Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a disorder that is thought to implicate some of the same neural structures as those involved in schizophrenia. We are studying eye movement performance in ADHD, the effect of methylphenidate, and the genes involved in methylphenidate response.