Research Studies

Sign up by: March 31, 2023

HANDDS-ONT takes place in the participant's home and community. We are seeking people living with a neurodegenerative disease or post-stroke, along with healthy controls. Our objectives: to understand how these diseases affect different people; discover ways to detect diseases earlier; explore ways to help people manage health related behaviours. Participant data is collected through small sensors worn on the wrist, ankle and chest for 7-10 days, along with assessment questionnaires and blood samples. Combining all this data will enable an understanding of daily challenges in aging while living with or without a neurodegenerative condition. Participants receive a personalized health and activity report from the period the sensors are worn. This information may help participants to better understand and manage some aspects of their health and it can be shared with their circle of care. Feedback on this report is requested as part of the study. For more see www.ondri.ca/handds

Key Details

Study sponsor: Funding for HANDDS-ONT is provided by the Ontario Brain Institute (OBI). OBI is partially funded by the government of Ontario.

Location: Required in-person participation - Blood sample is provided in community Lifelabs location. Optional internet participation. Optional phone participation.

How Often: Biweekly

Compensation: None

Contact: HANDDS-ONT Project coordinator, Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative

[email protected]

437-882-8335

Sign up by: 30 April 2025
This is a 5-year study which aims to evaluate and characterize frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) patients and asymptomatic individuals belonging to family with a strong history of an FTLD syndrome and their caregivers. This study seeks to learn more about how FTLD syndromes progress over time and to develop new tools that can aid with diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of FTLD.

Key Details
Study Sponsor: Funding: NIH International Study on FTD
Location: In-person (Required at Toronto Western Hospital)
How Often: Yearly
Compensation: Yes (Participants will be compensated for their travel, time and parking.)

Contact: Daniela Mora-Fisher, Clinical Research Coordinator
[email protected]
(416) 603-5914

Sign up by: 01 January 2023

The drug being studied is called JNJ-63733657. All reference to the words "study drug" can mean JNJ-63733657 or non-active placebo. A placebo is an inactive substance used as a control in a clinical study, to determine whether and how well the investigational drug works. In this study, the placebo will be a liquid that looks exactly like the investigational drug and is given in the same way but that contains no active drug. The purpose of this study is to see if JNJ-63733657 is safe and useful for treating participants with Early Alzheimer's disease defined as prodromal and mild dementia due to Alzheimer's disease. JNJ-63733657 is a tau monoclonal antibody that is designed to bind to tau in the brain. Tau is a protein that builds up in the brain and may cause memory loss. This study will determine if this antibody may prevent the tau from spreading in the brain and slow cognitive decline.

Key Details
Study Sponsor: Study Sponsor: Janssen Research & Development, LLC
Location: In-person (Required at Toronto Western Hospital)
How Often: Monthly
Compensation: Yes ($50 per visit)

Contact: Behnaz Ghazanfari or Amy Obssi, Memory Clinic Research Coordinator
[email protected]
(416) 603-5910

Sign up by: 31 December 2022

The purpose of the current study is to see whether the study drug, GV-971, improves AD symptoms, and how safe it is. The study will also look at what the body does to the study drug, such as how the body breaks down and uses the study drug and how it is removed from the body. This is known as pharmacokinetics. The study drug is currently approved for use in China for the treatment of mild to moderate AD. The study drug is made from a seaweed called brown algae. A specific sugar contained within the seaweed suppresses certain bacteria contained in the gut, which can cause harm to the brain, leading to AD. Approximately 2046 participants in around 200 study centers around the world will take part in this study.

Key Details
Study Sponsor: Sponsor of study is Shanghai Green Valley Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
Location: In-person (Required at Toronto Western Hospital)
How Often: Monthly
Compensation: Yes ($50 per visit)

Contact: Behnaz Ghazanfari, Memory Clinic Research Coordinator
[email protected]
416-603-5800 Ext.5910

Sign up by: 01 September 2025

Caregiving for people with dementia has become an issue of international importance. The focus of research in caregiver burden and distress in neurodegenerative disease has been on the patients' cognitive deficits and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Social cognition comprises many psychological processes that allows individuals to partake in social situations by enabling them to perceive and recognize the thoughts, emotions, and behaviours of others. There is growing awareness of social cognitive deficits occurring in the different neurodegenerative diseases. People with dementia may display increasing difficulties in understanding social cues or recognizing emotions and caregivers are generally unaware of these deficits. There is growing evidence that changes in emotion recognition can impact caregiver mood and be associated with caregiver burden.

This is a pilot project to assess the feasibility of educating dementia caregivers on emotion recognition deficits and decreased empathy in patients with dementia and the impact of education on caregiver burden, mood and quality of life. Seventy-five dementia caregiver-patient pairs will be recruited for this cross-sectional study. Caregivers' ability to detect emotion recognition deficits and empathy impairment in the patient will be assessed. Caregivers will be given a questionnaire to evaluate their knowledge of emotion recognition deficits and empathy impairment in the patient. Caregiver burden, mood, and quality of life will be assessed. The caregivers will then be given educational material on emotion recognition deficits and empathy impairment in dementia and then be asked to evaluate the information they have received. After 1 month, caregivers will be contacted to assess whether the information they received changed their understanding of emotion recognition deficits and empathy impairment and if it had an impact on caregiver burden, mood and quality of life.

Key Details
Study Sponsor: Toronto Western and General Hospitals
Location: In-person (Optional at Toronto Western Hospital) + Phone (Optional)
How Often: Yearly
Compensation: No

Contact: Daniela Mora-Fisher, Clinical Research Coordinator
[email protected]
416-603-5914

Sign up by: 01 September 2025

This study follows people with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and corticobasal degeneration (CBD) for up to 2 years and compares their brain changes with healthy volunteers of the same age. Researchers hope to learn more about how patients with PSP and CBD progress over time and which measures are best for tracking change and predicting progression. Various measures including brain imaging, cerebrospinal fluid analysis, eye tracking, blood markers and neuropsychological testing will be measured.

Key Details
Study Sponsor: Mayo Clinic NIH
Location: In-person (Required at Toronto Western Hospital)
How Often: A few times a year + Yearly
Compensation: Yes (Participants will be compensated for their time and expenses)

Contact: Daniela Mora-Fisher, Clinical Research Coordinator
[email protected]
416-603-5914

Sign up by: 30 September 2022

SARTAN-AD is a study comparing two blood pressure medications widely used in Canada, perindopril and telmisartan, to see whether they help slow down the progression of Alzheimer's disease over one year in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease with and without high blood pressure, and whether one medication is more effective. A study partner (family member, caregiver, or friend) is required. After two visits to determine eligibility, participants are randomly assigned to take one of the study medications for a year and are asked to record their blood pressure at home every day. There are in-person visits six and twelve months after starting the medication and remote visits in-between. Study assessments include MRI brain scans, memory tests, bloodwork, and ECGs.

Key Details
Study Sponsor: Funding: Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), Weston Brain Institute
Location: In-person (Required at one of the following sites - Toronto, ON: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; Hamilton, ON: Hamilton General Hospital; London, ON: Parkwood General Hospital; Calgary, AB: Foothills Medical Centre; Vancouver, BC: UBC Hospital) + Phone (Optional) + Internet (Optional)
How Often: Every day + A few times a year
Compensation: No

Contact: Ljubica Zotovic, Project Manager
[email protected]
416-480-6100 x3004

Sign up by: 25 November 2023

The main goal of the S-citAD study is to assess the safety and efficacy of escitalopram (a drug) in combination with psychosocial intervention as a treatment for agitation in patients with Alzheimer's disease. It will also look at the predictors of relapse and response duration, in patients with Alzheimer's disease with agitation who improve with psychosocial intervention, as well as those who do not improve with psychosocial intervention. This 24-week trial (12 weeks treatment; 12 weeks follow-up) enrolls participants from real world settings such as outpatient and assisted living facilities.

Key Details
Study Sponsor: This study is funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA)/ Johns Hopkins University.

Currently Enrolling: Individuals living in Whitby and the surrounding areas including the greater Toronto area

Location: In-person (Required at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences*) + Phone (Optional) + Internet (Optional)

*The majority of the visits during this study will be completed via phone or video calls. However, participants will be required to come to Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences for 2 or 6 visits during the 15-week treatment period.

How Often: Monthly
Compensation: Yes (Participants will receive payment of $25 per visit*)

*This applies to the first two visits, as well as Week 3, Week 6, Week 9 and Week 12. For in-person visits, participants will receive payment at the end of the visit. For telephone/video contacts, participants will be emailed an electronic gift card/cheque by regular mail (Canada Post).

Contact: Elaina Niciforos, Lead Study Co-ordinator

[email protected]

905-430-4055 Ext. 6139

905-430-4055 Ext. 6423

Sign up by: 15 November 2022

Guilt is a social emotion, and an important emotional experience that underlies many of our interactions and the choices we make to be prosocial in our daily lives. Despite this, relatively little is known about it, in particular the way that we experience guilt physiologically. Understanding how guilt looks in our body may be key to understanding disorders in which guilt is overabundant, such as obsessive compulsive disorder, or those in which guilt is lacking, such as psychopathy. This study will investigate patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a neurodegenerative disorder which has previously been shown to cause deficiency in guilt as well as abnormal autonomic reactions, as well as those with Lewy body dementia (LBD), who have autonomic dysfunction but an unknown ability to feel guilt, and those with Alzheimer's disease (AD), who have normal autonomic function and an intact ability to feel guilt.

Key Details
Study Sponsor: None
Location: In-person (Required at Parkwood Institute, 550 Wellington, Rd. London, ON)
How Often: Yearly
Compensation: Yes (50.00 and parking)

Contact: Sarah Jesso, Research Coordinator, Cognitive Neurology
[email protected]
519-646-6000 x64852