Population Neuroscience Research Group
The overarching goal is to uncover mechanisms underlying vulnerability and resilience to adversity with regard to brain health.
In the last 20 years, the team has laid down the conceptual and practical framework for population neuroscience, a new discipline that integrates neuroimaging, epidemiology, and genetics, to understand how genes and environment influence the developing, mature and ageing brain.
The Group approaches this research within the following framework:
- Brain health is built throughout life, starting with prenatal and early post-natal brain development, continuing with brain maturation during adolescence and the maintenance of brain health during midlife and in old age.
- Gaining new knowledge requires the use of innovative tools and approaches across different levels of analysis, from the neighbourhood through the individual’s brain to its fundamental unit, the cell.
- Given the complexity of the task, the group triangulates available evidence by combining new data obtained in (i) cohort studies (making observations), (ii) randomized control trials and genetic instruments (cause-and-effect in human studies) and (iii) experiments in mice and cell models (dissecting in vivo observations using ex vivo and in vitro tools).
The Group integrates research carried out at two locations: BBRC in Barcelona and the Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine in Montreal
The group has access to a large number of cohort studies of brain health across the lifespan, each with rich multimodal data, including magnetic resonance images (MRIs), assessments of cognition and mental health, cardiometabolic health, and various environmental variables. This together with genome-wide coverage of genetic variants and molecules circulating in blood, such as lipids, metabolites and proteins.
The Group established and directs Saguenay Youth Study, works with other BBRC colleagues on the ALFA Cohort and collaborates with a number of other cohorts established in Europe and Americas, including Northern Finland Birth Cohorts 1986, ALSPAC, Generation R, IMAGEN, Healthy Brain Network, the Brazil High Risk Cohort and the UNITY Study. Like many others researchers, the group has access to open-science cohorts such as the UK Biobank and the ABCD Study. Finally, the group benefits from the expertise and datasets provided by our colleagues in two large international Consortia, namely CHARGE and ENIGMA.
In the cohort context, they leverage their long-standing expertise in brain imaging and omics science to integrate systems-level knowledge of the human brain and body with that of genomics, epigenetics, metabolomics and proteomics. They have introduced in silico tools for inferring the neurobiology underlying MRI-derived metrics, novel statistical approaches for combining MRI and omics data, they use geospatial coding of physical, built and social environment to characterized neighbourhoods and their impact on brain health and they incorporate experimental modelling to triangulate their findings from human cohort studies. To remove participation barriers, the group uses mobile (low-field) MRI to bring this technology to disadvantaged communities and vulnerable individuals.
At present, they work on several projects carried out across the lifespan:
Research lines
Group childcare and cortical growth
This work investigates whether attending centre-based child care facilitates early postnatal expansion of the human cerebral cortex via dendritic growth. We propose that “dendritic reserve” may contribute to “cognitive reserve” and, in turn, increase the individual’s resilience to adversity later in life.
Social Environment and Functioning of Adolescents Born Preterm
This project is aimed at identifying features of area-level social environment that may modify long-term outcomes of preterm birth, including brain maturation and mental health of adolescents & young adults.
Cannabis and Brain Maturation: A population-based study
In the Saguenay Youth Study, they investigate possible impact of cannabis use on the brain and mental health in young adulthood. They focus on mechanisms that may reduce “dendritic reserve” and, in turn, the computational capacity of the cerebral cortex.
Visceral fat, neuroinflammation and brain health: towards early detection and prevention of preclinical dementia
The major goals of this project are to investigate whether systemic inflammation induced by excess body fat (and visceral fat in particular) may be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s Disease, and whether its impact on the brain can be monitored by newly identified lipid biomarkers. This project combines brain imaging and lipidomics in population-based cohorts and experimental models.
Obesity, ApoE-ε4, and lipid-related cortical atrophy at midlife and dementia in late life
The goal of this project is to examine whether midlife obesity and APOE4 jointly contribute to early cortical atrophy (and late dementia) through their mutually reinforcing effects on lipids and neuroinflammation, impairing neuronal plasticity and survival. This project combines large population-based cohorts and medical registry biobanks.
