Platforms in Toronto, London, and Hamilton aim to speed diagnosis, improve mental health care, and unlock the brain

TORONTO, June 16, 2026 /CNW/ - Ontario is reinforcing its leadership as a centre of excellence in brain research, with four new Brain Canada–supported platforms that will accelerate discoveries and improve care for people living with neurological disease, mental illness, and childhood brain conditions.

Announced today, the initiatives, based at leading institutions in Toronto, London, and Hamilton, with national reach, focus on some of the biggest challenges in brain health: understanding how the brain works, personalizing treatment for mental illness, improving care for children with brain conditions, and translating cutting‑edge neurotechnology into real‑world impact.

Together, the platforms represent a $10,570,000 investment in shared research infrastructure that will support scientists, clinicians, and patients across Ontario and Canada.

Seeing the brain in unprecedented detail

In London, Dr. Ravi Menon is leading Canada's National Ultra‑High Field MRI Platform at Western University's Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping (CFMM). For more than 30 years, CFMM has helped pioneer advanced MRI techniques that reveal how the brain is wired, how it functions, and how it changes in disease.

Ultra‑high field MRI enables researchers to study brain structure, activity, and chemistry in extraordinary detail, bridging the gap between preclinical models and human health. This Brain Canada support will sustain the highly specialized staff and infrastructure required to keep this unique national resource accessible through an established open‑science framework.

Watch: Western's CFMM mark 30 years of imaging discovery

Sharing University Health Network data to accelerate discoveries

In Toronto, Dr. Ian Connell, an affiliate scientist at UHN's KITE Research Institute, will lead research focusing on people with epilepsy and Parkinson's disease through the Centre for Neurotechnological Innovation to Application (CRANIA). This support from Brain Canada will help a consortium of researchers and clinicians from UHN and the University of Toronto further their collaborative, interprofessional work on invasive neuroscience.

The team will also use the funding to share unique datasets from within UHN, such as recordings of brain behaviour and brain imaging, with other institutions, including Sunnybrook, SickKids, Dalhousie and Harvard. They hope that having this information accessible to researchers around the world will fuel faster discoveries around predicting and understanding epilepsy and Parkinson's, and ultimately, better care for patients. 

Advancing precision care for children with brain conditions

Also in Toronto, at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Dr. Azadeh Kushki is leading a network of engineers, scientists, and clinicians to develop Whole-Child Open Neuroscience Data for Empowering Research (WONDER), a national data platform designed to improve care for children with brain conditions including autism, ADHD, cerebral palsy, and rare genetic conditions. WONDER will be centred at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, with co-leadership from Dr. Paul Arnold at the University of Calgary and Dr. Clara Moreau at CHU Sainte-Justine.

By securely connecting existing datasets and applying artificial intelligence to identify meaningful patterns, WONDER supports more personalized, equitable, and effective approaches to care.

Making mental health trials more inclusive and effective

In Hamilton, at the Research Institute of St. Joe's Hamilton, Dr. Benicio Frey is leading Enabling Neuroscience research Approaches for Brain, feeLings and Emotions (ENABLE), an innovative, pan-Canadian clinical trials platform focused on depression and bipolar disorder. Co‑designed with people with lived experience, ENABLE reflects the realities of real‑world mental illness and helps match individuals to treatments most likely to work for them.

"These platforms demonstrate the power of investing in shared infrastructure that is open, inclusive, and built for impact," said Viviane Poupon, President and CEO of Brain Canada. "From ultra‑high field MRI and neurosurgical data to precision mental health and childhood brain health research, this investment brings us closer to better brain health for Canadians."

Funding acknowledgment

These research platforms are supported by Brain Canada through the Canada Brain Research Fund (CBRF), an innovative partnership between the Government of Canada (through Health Canada) and Brain Canada Foundation, with financial contributions from national and regional partners, and donors.

About Brain Canada

Brain Canada plays a unique national role in convening and advancing brain research. Better understanding of the brain leads to improved prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cures for brain disorders. Visit braincanada.ca and follow @BrainCanada to learn more.

SOURCE Brain Canada