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October 10th is World Mental Health Day. The World Health Organization states that half of all mental illness begins by the age of 14, but most go unnoticed or untreated. Among adolescents, depression is the third leading disease burden and suicide is the second leading cause of death. With our adolescents and young adults facing such challenges much can be done to help build mental resilience from a young age to help prevent mental distress and illness.

As a lab we support research in the mental health field with a focus on child and adolescent mental health risk factors and how these effect development and changes they may have on young peoples brains.

The WHO has made young people and mental health in a changing world the focus of this years World Mental Health Day, to find out more check out their page.    http://www.who.int/mental_health/world-mental-health-day/2018/en/

September 9th is FASD Awareness Day (9th day of the 9th month, to represent 9 months of pregnancy). Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is far more common than most people realize, affecting ~4% of Canadians. To celebrate FASD Awareness Day, our lab (in conjunction with Carly McMorris’ lab) hosted a mocktail making contest.

The assorted mocktails:

The winner:

We also attended CFAN’s FASD Breakfast on Sep. 9. We had tons of fun, and even discovered some hidden talents among the lab.

We spent two days in Canmore talking about projects, making plans, and enjoying the beautiful weather. We all made it to the top of Sulphur Mountain.

For 4 years now, 170 families have volunteered their time and enabled us to collect one of the largest sets of brain images of preschool-age children in the world. Thank you to all families and volunteers.

Dr. Catherine Lebel’s work on maternal depression and children’s brain structure was recently featured in different media outlets.

Science and law enforcement are rethinking what it means to be an adult featuring Dr. Catherine Lebel

Dr. Catherine Lebel among the top 40 under 40 for her contribution to the field of pediatric MRI. Lebel has transformed the MRI scanning experience for preschool-aged children at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, allowing her to collect one of the largest samples of brain MRI data from this group in the world. ​

Pre- and post-partum maternal depressive symptoms are related to children’s brain structure in preschool
Catherine Lebel, Matthew Walton, Nicole Letourneau, Gerald F. Giesbrecht, Bonnie J. Kaplan, Deborah Dewey |Biological Psychiatry, Available online 15 December 2015, ISSN 0006-3223

Brain metabolite levels and language abilities in preschool children​
Catherine Lebel, Frank P. MacMaster, Deborah Dewey
Brain and Behavior, Available online 01 August 2016, ISSN 2162-3279

Participate in the Brain Development in Childhood and Adolescence study.

Contact:
​Bryce Geeraert
Bgeeraert@gmail.com
403-955-5735

We are pursuing partnerships with the Early Childhood Development community to enhance Community-University Partnerships in Research. Infographic about depression and brain structure, courtesy of the First 2000 Days Network!