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CIHR funds project to develop new tool for modelling long-term brain health

July 23, 2025

91ܽ (SFU) Faculty of Science researchers have received $830,000 in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) through the Spring 2025 Project Grant competition.

A research team led by SFU biomedical physiology professor Randy McIntosh and including SFU psychology professor Brianne Kent and biomedical physiology professor Alex Wiesman aims to develop Lifespan Model, a computational tool that simulates how an individual’s brain changes from childhood to old age.

Understanding how the brain changes over a person’s life is critical for detecting early signs of disorders like dementia and improving personalized treatments. However, current methods mostly provide isolated snapshots of brain function, making it difficult to predict long-term brain health.

By linking neuroimaging datasets from different life stages, the team will create synthetic lifespan trajectories and provide individualized predictions of brain health.

The CIHR Project Grant program funds research in all areas of health with the greatest potential to generate new fundamental or applied knowledge to advance health care, health systems, and/or health outcomes.

Learn more about CIHR Project Grants and .

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