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SRI Profiles
Senior Scientist
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
2075 Bayview Ave., Room S6 69
Toronto, ON M4N 3M5
Administrative Assistant: Zeynep Acar
Phone: 416-480-6100, ext. 5765
Email: zeynep.acar@sunnybrook.ca
Education:
- B.Sc., 1988, engineering physics, Queen's University
- PhD, 1995, medical biophysics, University of Toronto
Appointments and Affiliations:
- Senior scientist, Physical Sciences, Hurvitz Brain Sciences Research Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute
- Professor, department of medical biophysics, U of T
Research Foci:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of stroke recovery
- Head motion during fMRI
- Virtual reality (VR) and fMRI
- Combining functional neuroimaging modalities
- Applications of fMRI in neuroscience
Research Summary:
Dr. Graham is a neuroimaging scientist exploring the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for mapping neural activity within the brain. The work is inherently multidisciplinary and highly collaborative; it occurs at the interface between imaging physics, biomedical engineering, psychology, neurology and psychiatry.
An example of one of Dr. Graham's research programs is research to combine virtual reality (VR) with fMRI. Ongoing research involves systems design and development of ergonomic standalone and MRI‑compatible VR equipment; the development of behavioural tasks for psychological testing using virtual environments to understand normal behaviour and detect and quantify neurological and psychiatric disease; extension of these tasks to accommodate fMRI experiments to determine brain regions associated with these behaviours; and fMRI experiments to investigate use of virtual environments for cognitive and physical rehabilitation. Work in this area involves fMRI studies of simulated driving, in collaboration with Dr. Tom Schweizer at St. Michael's Hospital. Potential outcomes of this research are the development of objective assessment tools that can enhance physicians' ability to assess a person's fitness to drive and modifications to public policy to improve safe driving in Ontario.
Selected Publications:
See current publications at PubMed
Related News and Stories:
- Innovative technologies need early-stage investment: Proof-of-principle funding is important to get medical products to market (SRI Magazine, 2016)
- Ask a scientist: What is the hardest part about your research to communicate to someone without a scientific background? (SRI Magazine, 2013)
- Eyes on the prize: National student competition recognizes excellence in biomedical research (Jan. 4, 2013)
- At the edge: Federal government awards leaders in innovation (Nov. 27, 2012)
