BHI Research 2023-2026

Since its establishment in 2023, the BHI has supported interdisciplinary brain-heart research through a range of strategic funding programs.

The first and largest investment to date has been in Baseline Projects for BHI Foundations and Themes. Through this baseline funding program, BHI has invested $14M in 21 Baseline projects directly related to BHI’s two Scientific Foundations and four Themes. The BHI has also supported the Ignition Program and Exploration Program.

2023 Baseline Funding for BHI Foundations and Themes
The Baseline Funding Program was launched by BHI in 2023. It is funding 19 interdisciplinary projects across the Foundations and Themes ranging from less than $200,000 to over $1.5M over 2.5 years.
Foundation or Theme	Project Title	Primary Investigator(s)	Institution
Foundation 1	Core Epidemiology Program	Jodi Edwards	UOHI
	Core Knowledge Synthesis Program	David Moher	OHRI
	Core Prediction Analytics Program	Doug Manuel	OHRI
Foundation 2	Brain-Heart-Muscle Dysfunction in Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 (DM1)	Hanns Lochmüller	CHEO
Foundation 2	Mechanisms by which brain-heart are connected	Ruth Slack, Katey Rayner	uOttawa, UOHI
Theme 1	Serum and PET biomarkers in inflammatory patients	Dar Dowlatshahi, Deborah Seigal	OHRI
	Brain-Heart Innovative Biomarker Research AND Validation Endeavour (BHI-BRAVE)	Peter Liu	UOHI
	Mapping fructolysis and 4-FDF tracer	Adam Shuhendler, Lauri Tuominen	uOttawa
Theme 2	Boosting Recovery According to IGFBP7 levels as Novel HEART Failure ± COGnitive impairment Strategies (BRAIN-HEART-COGS) Proposal	Peter Liu	UOHI
	Therapies for life-long Brain-Heart Disease in Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 (DM1)	Hanns Lochmüller	CHEO
	Concussion in non-athletes: RCT- physical activity vs. usual concussion care	Roger Zemek, Sharon Johnston	CHEO Monfort
Theme 3	School-based mental health interventions to build resilience against future brain and heart dysfunction	Tracy Vaillancourt, Daphne Korczak	uOttawa
	Identifying the real-life challenges to healthy living and prevention of brain-heart illnesses across the lifespan	Nafissa Ismail	uOttawa
	Patterns of cannabis use and the impact on mental health and cardiovascular risk	Smita Pakhale	OHRI
	C-CHANGE clinical practice guideline development	Sheldon Tobe, Peter Liu	Sunny brook UOHI
Theme 4	Innovations-Decision Aids	Dawn Stacey, Krystina Lewis	uOttawa
	Two-eyed Seeing Approaches to Learning from Health Information for System Improvement: Working with First Nation Communities on Brain-Heart Wellness	Alexandra King, Malcolm King	USask
	Primary care practices digital health outreach to address social isolation, a common risk factor for many brain and heart conditions	Sharon Johnston, Sathya Karunananthan	ISM
	BRAIN-HEART COMMUNITY CARE MODEL: Community Partnership to Optimize the Regional Care Delivery System for Brain and Heart Conditions	Vivian Welch, Krystal MacLeod	BHRI

2024 Ignition Program Awardees
These grants ($25,000 over 1-year) foster the development of relationships between researchers and patients and other knowledge users to co-produce brain-heart research and mobilizing research outcomes.
Foundation and Themes	Project Title	Investigators	Institution
F1, T2	Designing an IDEAS-sensitive psychological intervention for women with spontaneous coronary artery dissection	Heather Tulloch, Helen Robert	UOHI
	PATIENT FOCUS: Promoting Agency Through Innovative Education and Networked Teams (PATIENT) while Facilitating Outcomes and Collaboration for the Understanding of the Brain-Heart System (FOCUS) with HeartLife	Peter Liu, Jillianne Code, Marc Bains	UOHI
F1, F2, T3, T4	AI-Based ECG Predictions for Early Detection of Mental and Neurological Disorders	Christopher Sun, Gordon McGregor, Nancy Myers	uOttawa

2024 Exploration Program Awardees
These grants ($100,000 over 1-year) aim to advance new areas of mission-driven, high-impact integrated brain-heart research. These grants are dedicated to supporting researchers, in collaboration with patients and other knowledge users, to test a new hypothesis, explore higher risk research questions or advance innovation in brain-heart research.
Foundation and Themes	Project Title	Investigators	Institution
T2, T4	COMPACT Stroke: Consent Modernization for Platform Adaptive Clinical Trials in Stroke	Michel Shamy, Gary Boon, Yan Xu	OHRI
F1, F2, T1	PRecision ThrOmbus BiomarkerS to Predict the FuturE Risk of Stroke and Heart Disease (PROSPER Pilot Study)	Vignan Yogendrakumar, Andre Lafrance, Mireille Ouimet	OHRI
F1, T2, T3	Exercise Training in Women with Heart Disease: A BHI Project	Jennifer Reed, Ann-Marie Julien, Natalia Jaworska	UOHI
F1, T1, T2	Personalizing therapy in depression and anxiety across mental and cardiac disorders - Patient-centered precision music intervention	Georg Northoff, Sarah Cantin	IMHR
T2, T3, T4	A randomized sham-controlled trial of CArdioNeuroablation for patients with VAsovagal Syncope (CANVAS).	Mehrdad Golian, Tesia Ann Kennedy	UOHI
T3, T4	Alone, in a crowded room: A Canada-wide, participatory mixed methods study on loneliness in patients with early onset heart failure ("CONNECT-HF")	Karen Bouchard, Jenny Milne, Kerri-Anne Mullen	UOHI
F2	GLP-1R Signaling and Neuroinflammation: Decoding Metabolic Signals from the CNS	Erin Mulvihill, Josee Chenier	UOHI
F1, T4	PREDIGT3.0 - Early Parkinson's Detection Through Multi-Modal Screening	Michael Schlossmacher, Sarah Jane Batten, Juan LI	OHRI
F2, T1, T2	Modeling the impact of cardiac emboli on cognition in mouse	Greg Silasi, Kareen McCaughan, Angela Auriat	uOttawa
F2, T1, T2	Targeting serotonin to improve depression and dementia in heart and Alzheimer disease	Paul Albert, Catherine Goodenough, Ruth Slack	uOttawa
F2, T2, T3	Genetic Crosstalk at the Heart-Brain Interface: Insights into Irregular Heart Rhythms and Neuropsychiatric Diseases	Kyoung-Han Kim, Sailendra Sarma	UOHI
F1, T1, T2	Enhancing sleep to improve brain-heart functions in people with persistent post-concussion symptoms	Rebecca Robillard, Ilona Skerjanc	IMHR

BHI Research 2023-2026

2023 Baseline Funding for BHI Foundations and Themes arrow_drop_down

2024 Ignition Program Awardees arrow_drop_down

2024 Exploration Program Awardees arrow_drop_down