Secondary analyses of the pathways between impulsivity, emotion regulation deficits, and comorbid. The ongoing opioid use crisis in Canada has been worsened by societal disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Effective treatments for opioid use disorders (OUDs) are desperately needed. Opioid substitution treatment (OST), using medications like methadone or buprenorphine, is the most effective treatment for OUD.

Music therapy is an evidence-based effective intervention to promote psychological, social and emotional health, and it is specifically favored by older adults. However, little is known on the efficacy of the AI-assisted empathic music therapy in which the music is continuously adapted to individuals’ mood. To fill this gap, the proposed project will assess the added benefits of the AI music therapy (AIT) compared to traditional music therapy (TMT) in older adults.

Mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression, are becoming increasingly common among children and adolescents, yet still only a small portion of youth receive the support they need. For these reasons, many community organizations have been focused on helping children develop the social and emotional skills which help to support children’s mental health and avoid mental illness. This project involves evaluating such a program, called Brainworx!, which is run by a Canadian not-for-profit, Start2Finish.

LGBTQIA2S+ individuals face barriers and challenges in gaining employment in tech, resulting in their underrepresentation in the industry. Research on this issue is sparse and incomplete. To address this labour-market gap in Canada and improve opportunities, we propose a mixed-methods research study that includes a quantitative survey about LGBTQIA2S+ experiences in tech companies and qualitative interviews with a representative sample.

Probiotics are a form a good bacteria that provide health benefits to the host when consumed in adequate amounts. Previous research suggests that an individual’s cognitive function can improve following probiotic supplementation. Similarly, individuals display physiological changes related to stress and immune system function, improvements in mood, and improvements in sleep quality following probiotic supplementation.

Pulse surveys are effective tools to improve how organizations function by measuring the real time response of employees on a periodic basis. The current project aims to develop
a series of pulse surveys that measure the following concepts: team alignment, job satisfaction, employee engagement, and wellness. These concepts were picked because of their connection to organizational success. The results of this study will provide the partner organization, Quilt, a series of effective pulse surveys that will be integrated into their software application.

While most people gamble for fun, some people suffer harms from their gambling. To prevent people from experiencing gambling-related harm, the gambling industry has put in place responsible gambling programs and tools to help people gamble within their means. However, even with the different responsible gambling tools and information available to players, the use of these resources is low. In the current project, I will be working with the gambling industry to understand how responsible gambling programming can be more effective and appealing to players.

Research has shown that substance use disorders may have distinct pathologies requiring different treatment approaches. Recently, there has been a growing interest in personalized medicine, which aims to tailor treatment to a patient’s unique characteristics. One strategy for implementing a personalized approach in heterogeneous clinical settings is to identify patients exhibiting common clusters of symptoms. However, these methods are infrequently implemented in psychiatry and addiction care.

When we get older, we tend to experience difficulties naming people, locations, and objects around us more frequently. Word-finding difficulties like these are not only sources of frustration but also crucial indications of a general cognitive decline. The company Winterlight Labs developed a software that analyzes natural speech for detection of cognitive decline and found that word-finding difficulties can be important cognitive indications.

While the use of “big data” in the business world and health sector is well underway, mental health services are slower to use their big data, particularly for research and decision-making purposes. Researchers have identified a need to explore the use of big data in mental health organizations, such as identifying strategies and tools to optimize data use, and examining the role of big data in mental health service delivery and policy development.