My research program is aimed at achieving a better understanding of childhood development and the consequences of early brain injury. We use several methodological and technological approaches in four main spheres of investigation:

• Studies of normal childhood development and predictive factors of brain and cognitive maturation
• Investigation of the effects of perinatal brain injury (e.g. prematurity) and postnatal brain injury (e.g. cranial trauma) on cognition, social competence, quality of life and brain development
• Development and validation of new cognitive tasks and social skills (e.g. moral reasoning, theory of mind, executive functions)
• Development of intervention programs for parents and children/teens with traumatic brain injuries

Target populations: healthy populations, traumatic brain injury, prematurity, behavioural problems, child psychiatric disorders, metabolic/genetic diseases, other neuropsychological disorders, etc.

Techniques used: MRI, fMRI, PET, DTI, eye tracking, neuropsychological assessment, longitudinal studies, etc.

My current research mainly concerns the cognitive and cerebral effects of different pediatric diseases and syndromes, such as epilepsy, infantile spasms, tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), prematurity and congenital cardiac anomalies. In the laboratory, I use neuropsychological assessment and neuroimaging (optical imaging (NIRS), electroencephalography) and magnetoencephalography (MEG)) to better understand these pathologies and their impact on brain development, identify predictive markers for certain related disorders or developmental prognostics and develop pre-surgical assessment techniques suitable for use with these populations.

My research lies at the crossroads of social psychology and developmental psychology, and is based on the theory of self-determination (Deci & Ryan; 1980, 2000, 2010), which postulates that human beings have three essential psychological needs: competence, relatedness and autonomy. My research activities concern children’s need for autonomy and their development.

Suzanne King is a Professor of Psychiatry at McGill University and has been a Lead Investigator in the Psychosocial Research Division at the Douglas Institute Research Centre since 1991. Her prior work on schizophrenia investigated the associations between the course of schizophrenia and family attitudes toward the patient (expressed emotions).

More recently, Project EnviroGen has been investigating the means by which risk factors for schizophrenia, including genetics, prenatal stress, obstetric complications, childhood trauma and teenage cannabis use, influence the appearance of symptoms among schizophrenic individuals and in "healthy" control populations. Using a local natural disaster to prospectively examine the effects of prenatal stress, Dr. King and her team followed over 150 women who had been pregnant during the 1998 ice storm and their children.

Project Icestorm showed that the severity of maternal stress and the trimester of the pregnancy at the time of exposure explain the variance in the children's cognitive, behavioural and physical development. The effects of exposure to prenatal maternal stress were still present among children at age 11 ½.

A second study on prenatal maternal stress, the Iowa Flood Study, attempted to replicate Project Icestorm by following 300 women who had experienced flooding in June 2008, including a cohort of women whose risk factors and psychosocial functioning had been assessed before the disaster, making this the first pre- and post-trauma study of pregnant women.

Lastly, the QF2011 Queensland Flood Study includes pre-flood psychosocial data, a randomized control group using two birth support practices by a midwife, and biological samples from the births collected from nearly 300 Australian women. Dr. King is attempting to integrate the findings of her prospective and retrospective studies in a neurodevelopmental model of severe mental illness.

Sarah Lippé, Ph.D. Neuropsychologist

Full Professor, Psychology Department, University of Montreal
Director, Neuroscience of Early Development Lab (NED)
FRQ-S Senior Scientist, Sainte-Justine Hospital

“What happens at key moments in child development when pathologies sometimes occur that harm cerebral, cognitive, and emotional development?” Dr. Sarah Lippé Ph.D, neuropsychologist, Full Professor of Psychology at the University of Montreal and FRQ-S Senior Scientist at Sainte-Justine Hospital, is determined to find answers. As Director of the multidisciplinary Neuroscience of Early Development Lab (NED) she studies the cerebral mechanisms involved in learning processes in infants and children. 

Sarah Lippé, completed a Master’s degree in neuropsychology and a Ph.D. in clinical and research neuropsychology at the University of Montreal. She was trained as a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at the Atomic Energy Commission (France) and at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care (Toronto). She is member of several research groups and Network (BRAMS, CerebrUM, GRIP, TACC, KBHN). Her research focuses on brain development, sensory processing and sensitivity and learning in healthy infants and children. Further, she investigates neurodevelopmental disorders risk factors. She particularly wants to understand the prenatal and genetic risk factors leading to neurodevelopmental disorders, and their consequences on brain development, sensory processing and sensitivity and learning capacities. Her investigation methods are non-invasive and enables her to develop early screening methods and treatment efficacy assessments. 

Among her current initiatives, she co-leads a multidisciplinary translational research program to mechanistically understand neurodevelopmental disorders. She also leads the first inter-generational genetic-neuropsychology-EEG cohort of children with genetic risk factors, in which more than 400 families are tested using EEG and neuropsychology (Brain Canada, Quebec 1000 projects (Q1K)). Moreover, ongoing contributions include the development of treatment options for neurodevelopmental disorders. Her lab is among the very first to propose EEG as an outcome measure in international and national clinical trials. Her team is driving the EEG investigation of the potential benefits of Metformin in FXS (Azrieli funded). She leads the neuropsychology and EEG investigation aspect of Canada-USA-European clinical trials for children presenting with autism. She is also involved in several national and international initiatives on infant EEG, aiming at creating a normative database to understand EEG signals maturation and to create a clinical tool for infants’ brain signal assessments. Her laboratory “Neuroscience of Early Development lab” is multidisciplinary and includes students and HQP at all levels of training. She is also on board of directors of several initiatives including Kids Brain Health Network and Fragile X Research Foundation of Canada aiming at supporting research and families.