Cannabis and cannabis-based medicines are used increasingly in Canada, including by people with MS. Studies demonstrate that cannabis negatively affects cognition. It is also well known that MS itself can negatively affect cognition, affecting 40-65% of MS patients. Cannabis has two main components: tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). THC is responsible for the signature “high” of cannabis, while CBD is not. Preliminary studies suggest that THC may be the component that negatively affects cognition, and that CBD alone does not. This differentiation would be important to know, as it would allow person with MS to weigh the risks of using products with THC, CBD, or both. The purpose of this research study is to examine the effect of Cannabis components, THC and CBD, on cognition and bladder symptoms in people with MS.

This study is looking at how people with post-stroke impaired walking acquire a new walking pattern during rehabilitation within the first 6 months of a stroke. A common way to improve gait and walking in patients who have neurological injuries employs treadmill walking with body weight support. However, treadmill walking has been criticized for a lack of patient engagement. Our lab uses a specially instrumented treadmill called the split-belt treadmill in conjunction with a virtual reality system to improve patient engagement. A split-belt treadmill typically has two belts that each move at a different speed, allowing the affected leg to move at a different speed than the unaffected leg. This is not possible in conventional treadmill training. Using this novel virtual reality-assisted split-belt treadmill allows us to motivate patients through an engaging form of rehabilitation to improve the recovery of motor, visual, and cognitive functions. We want to look at how safe the new virtual reality platform is for rehabilitation and assess patient satisfaction and motivation while interacting with virtual environments. We will also collect information on how healthy people and people with different neurological injuries perform on the different virtual reality tasks while relearning a new walking pattern. We hope that the results of this work will help move towards better therapies for stroke survivors with lower extremity deficits.

This study aims to figure out the connection between the digestive system and some brain-related conditions. The tiny organisms living in our digestive system, called gut microbiota. The gut microbiota might be linked to some brain-related conditions such as Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Tourette Syndrome (TS). These conditions can be affected by both our genes and things around us in other words our environment. The gut microbiota can affect how our immune system grows. It also affects how our brain develops and functions. This is through a pathway called the gut-brain axis. Our team aims to see if there's a link between these conditions and the gut microbiota. We hope this research will lead us to new ways to support children and their families.

This study is designed to see if a robotic gait training program can be effectively run in a clinical setting. It will also assess if the program can help participants to reach their goals. Participants will work with researchers to develop a training program using the robotic gait trainer. This program will aim to help participants reach their goals.

We want to learn about strength training in youth with Cerebral Palsy. Can it help kids with CP meet their goals? Does it work when we provide it at a community recreation center instead of at a hospital?

This research study investigates adult-onset idiopathic dystonia, a neurological condition presenting with uncontrollable movements and twisted postures that may affect any part of the body. Adult-onset idiopathic dystonia reduces quality of life and may be invalidating for many patients. Unfortunately, we still know very little about what causes it and what makes it spread from one body region to another. In order to investigate the brain functions that are involved in dystonia, it is necessary to compare patients with the condition to people without it. For this reason, we are also approaching healthy individuals and patients with hemifacial spasm, a neurological condition that, even if it is not related to dystonia, is also treated with botox injections approximately every 3 months. Your participation is therefore very important to the success of this study as it will allow us to get a better understanding of this condition.

Contracture and spasticity both can impact movements in people who have an injury to their central nervous system. It is hard to know which one is contributes more to problems with movement. That contributes to making contracture and spasticity hard to treat. The Portable Spasticity Assessment Device (PSAD) can tell them apart, but it has not been used in clinics yet. The purpose of this study is to determine if the PSAD is useful and practical to use in the clinic. Participants will have their spasticity and contracture evaluated using the PSAD. It is very similar to the usual tests their clinician would do and involves recording their muscle activity with sticker on their muscles. Most assessments will occur when participants are seeing their clinicians. We will ask some participants to come in for an extra visit.

What is the real-world effectiveness of ubrogepant for migraine treatment in Canada? This is a prospective, observational, multicenter study to assess the effectiveness of ubrogepant for the acute treatment of migraine attacks in routine clinical practice in Canada. Approximately 167 adults (≥ 18 years of age) prescribed ubrogepant by their physician for the treatment of migraine will be enrolled. The overall study duration will be approximately 12 weeks and will consist of 2 site visits at baseline (enrollment) (Visit 1/Day 1) and Week 12 (Visit 4/end of study). Telephone visits will occur at Weeks 4 (Visit 2) and 8 (Visit 3).

The purpose of this research study is to find out if it is better to continue or discontinue statin drugs in people who had a brain hemorrhage while taking a statin drug. Statin drugs help prevent heart disease and ischemic stroke. Ischemic strokes are caused by a clot in a blood vessel that blocks blood flow to a part of the brain. However, statin drugs might increase the risk of having another brain hemorrhage in some people that already had a brain hemorrhage. Many physicians are not sure what to do about using statin drugs after a brain hemorrhage. They are not sure if it is better to continue or stop treatment with a statin drug after a brain hemorrhage. Some people may have an increased likelihood of having another brain hemorrhage while taking statin drugs. This may be due to people having certain genes. Genes are made up of DNA. DNA contains information that determines in part the traits, such as eye color, height, or disease risk, that are passed on from parent to child. Genes provide an instruction book for making proteins that make a person unique. This “uniqueness” includes a person’s diseases, response to drugs, or other problems. Having certain Apolipoprotein-E genes might make some people more likely to have another brain hemorrhage while taking statin drugs. This study is also being done to see if you have one of these Apolipoprotein-E genes and to examine whether having these genes actually increases the risk of brain hemorrhage in people who take statin drugs.

We need new tools to find and track brain diseases better, as people get older. Technology has improved, but it's still hard to examine small parts of the face and mouth, like the tongue. This project wants to fix that by making a way to follow how the tongue works during tests for brain health. We will use audio and video recordings from a computer to create accurate ways to track tongues. We will check these against existing tests to make sure they work well. The goal is to make a tool that doctors everywhere can use during tests. This could change how we check brain health by letting us track it automatically and from far away. It might help patients with brain problems get better results.