Keeping a routine is important for everyone, including children and adolescents, says pediatric sleep expert Reut Gruber, an associate professor in the department of psychiatry at McGill University. Your brain needs “zeitgebers” (time givers), or cues from the environment, to recognize day from night, she says. These zeitgebers include having breakfast and exposing yourself to daylight in the morning, for instance, Dr. Gruber says. At night, the body produces melatonin when it gets dark, which tells your brain it is time to go to sleep.
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Published on: 2 Apr 2020
Montreal, September 23, 2019 – According to a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the biological clock influences immune response efficacy. Indeed, CD8 T cells, which are essential to fight infections and cancers, function very differently according to the time of day. The study was carried out by a team of researchers led by Nicolas Cermakian, PhD, of the Douglas Research Centre, and Nathalie Labrecque, PhD, of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre.
Published on: 23 Sep 2019
Depression can be associated with behaviours such as social avoidance, that is, the refusal to interact with others for fear of being judged or criticized. Physicians and other mental health workers have noted that patients with depressive disorders exhibit cognitive symptoms, especially with regard to memory.
Published on: 13 Aug 2019
Study could lead to development of personalized biomarkers and treatment
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often lumped into a single catch-all group, despite significant differences in symptom profile and severity. Further muddying the waters when trying to understand and treat ASD, many previous studies show significant variability in findings.
Published on: 8 May 2019
Study sheds light on longstanding debate
Researchers have known for decades that inflammation accompanies Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brain lesions. Several early studies suggested that “super-aspirins” or Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) could help avoid the disease. However, after clinical trials showed that NSAIDs don’t help patients who already have AD symptoms, doctors wondered whether these drugs could still be helpful to people who were at risk of developing the disease, but weren’t yet showing symptoms.
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Published on: 5 Apr 2019
To mark the 75th anniversary of McGill University’s Department of Psychiatry, Canada’s first academic department in the field, a special symposium will be held at the St. James Theatre on November 29. Under the theme “Looking Forward, Looking Back” the event will provide participants with the opportunity to hear from a distinguished lineup of international speakers and to network with old and new colleagues alike.
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Published on: 9 Nov 2018
Interpreting age-related changes and differences in brain structure, activation and functional connectivity is an ongoing challenge. Ambiguous terminology is a major source of this challenge. For example, the terms “compensation”, “maintenance”, and “reserve” are used in different ways by researchers. Most of the time, they disagree about the kind of evidence or patterns of results required to interpret findings related to these concepts.
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Published on: 11 Oct 2018
"This is men's health week, a chance to renew thinking about men's mental health.
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Published on: 11 Jun 2018
Suzanne King, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University and Douglas Institute
She can talk about the importance of keeping pregnant women away from stress, for themselves and their baby. Professor King is a specialist in prenatal maternal stress. She began the Iowa Flood Study right after major flooding in this US state in June 2008. Her group added disaster questionnaires to an existing study of pregnant women for whom mental health data had been collected prior to the flooding.
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Published on: 9 May 2017
Does the biological clock in cancer cells influence tumour growth? Yes, according to a study conducted by Nicolas Cermakian, a professor in McGill University’s Department of Psychiatry.
Published in the journal BMC Biology, these results show for the first time that directly targeting the biological clock in a cancerous tumour has an impact on its development.
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Published on: 16 Feb 2017
The first large-scale study of its kind has revealed that Canadian men generally lack knowledge about the risk factors contributing to male infertility. Research led by Dr. Phyllis Zelkowitz, head of psychosocial research at the Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital, found that men could only identify about 50% of the potential risks and medical conditions that are detrimental to their sperm count and, thus, their prospects to father children.
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Published on: 22 Nov 2016
