Projects Funded in Cycle 1
| Recipient | Project Title | Funding Received | Start Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anna Weinberg | McGill Mini Lab | $25,000 | December 1, 2022 |
| Maxime Montembeault | Innovative and inclusive cognitive assessment for older adults | $25,000 | November 21, 2022 |
| Alexandre Reynaud | Communicating embodied experience | $25,000 | February 1, 2023 |
| Maiya Geddes | Addressing gender selection bias in aging research | $25,000 | December 15, 2022 |
Cycle 1 of the Cognitive Neuroscience kNowledge Exchange for Clinical Translation (CONNECT) initiative was the first in a three-year effort to do cognitive neuroscience differently.
This first session brought interdisciplinary participants together to work on creative solutions to the question: “How might we make cognitive neuroscience research more applicable to the real world?”
The program consisted of:
- Professionally facilitated ‘design thinking’ sessions;
- Interdisciplinary collaboration among individuals with complementary expertise;
- Support for the development of innovative solutions with the potential to improve the way cognitive neuroscience is conducted—to make it more useful, applicable and generalizable; and
- Funding for selected projects from a total envelope available of $850,000 (to be allocated across six planned cycles).
Projects Lay Summaries
PI: Anna Weinberg
Co-PIs: Signy Sheldon and Tina Montreuil
Start date: 2022-12-01; End date: 2023-11-01
Lay abstract: Cognitive Neuroscience excels at precision measurement in the lab, but is less adept at understanding what is going on in the real world—making it hard to link our precision lab measures to the "real world." The McGill Mobile Lab project aims to develop a universal, scalable app-based program that can bring cognitive neuroscience research to participants' mobile phones. This will reduce barriers to participation, enabling researchers to collect data from more representative samples. It will also allow researchers to capture information about participants' cognitive and affective functioning as it occurs in the real world.
Innovative and inclusive cognitive assessment for older adults
PI: Maxime Montembeault
Co-PIs: Lisa Koski, Denise Klein, Miriam Taza and Niusha Mirhakimi
Start date: 2022-11-21; End date: 2023-12-01
Lay abstract: Most existing assessment tools for the screening and the monitoring of dementia are not adapted for patients 1) with hearing or visual impairments; 2) who are not native English speakers; 3) who have moderate-to-severe dementia; 4) who present lower levels of education. In this project, we hope to improve the validity and precision when measuring global cognition or dementia severity in these individuals. First, we will conduct a systematic review of the use of the item-response theory on cognitive tests for older adults with or without dementia. Second, we will develop a novel assessment tool and conduct a validation study.
Communicating embodied experience
PI: Alexandre Reynaud
Co-PIs: Amelia Robinson, Naila Kuhlmann, Sapphire Hou, Niloofar Gharesi
Start date: 2023-02-01; End date: 2024-03-30
Lay abstract: In neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), the inaccessibility of a patient’s lived and felt (e.g. embodied) experience poses a barrier to empathy and care provision. To address this communication gap, we investigate how embodied experiences may be conveyed using a multi-sensory approach that bypasses reliance on words and clinical measures. We use a participatory and iterative approach to (i) identify aspects of PD that are currently “lost in translation”; and (ii) work with patients and care providers to develop a solution to convey embodied experience more directly.
Addressing gender selection bias in aging research
PI: Maiya Geddes
Start date: 2022-12-15; End date: 2024-02-01
Lay abstract: The current study employs a participatory research methodology, fuzzy cognitive mapping, in order to identify gender-related barriers and facilitating factors underlying recruitment bias in cognitive aging research. Our goal is to address the lack of evidence-based strategies to enhance diversity in research samples. This study lays a foundation for representative gender sampling strategies in support of more generalizable research findings.
