Bold Minds: Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research

When cells in our brain break from the tight control that weaves this complex structure together, they can form a tumour. Across tissue types in the body, we’ve come a long way in advances to treat various cancers. But the complex milieu of the brain poses a unique challenge, and requires a unique lens that brings together new technologies grounded in a fundamental biological understanding of the...

What if we could slow - or even stop - the brain’s decline? Cognitive disorders like dementia affect millions of people worldwide. As Canada faces an increasingly aging population, and more people become caregivers for their elderly loved ones, healthy aging of both brain and body are top of mind for many. Luckily, researchers are revealing a far more hopeful picture as they explore how actions in...

On the surface, it might not seem like autism spectrum disorder, obesity, and multiple sclerosis have much in common. But despite the fact that these conditions share very little in terms of symptoms, treatments, and even affected populations, the way they're being explored by researchers on the cutting edge of neuroscience is more similar than you might imagine. Some brain disorders hide in the s...

In this special bonus episode of Bold Minds , we’re zooming out from the labs of brain science researchers to take a look at the bigger picture: the philanthropic ecosystem that sustains and supports brain research in Canada. Central to that ecosystem is the Azrieli Foundation. It is the leading non-governmental funder of brain research in Canada, and a longtime donor and partner to Brain Canada....

Neurodevelopmental disorders affect roughly 14% of children worldwide. In Canada, just under one in every 10 children is estimated to be affected. Disorders of the brain represent a huge spectrum of conditions: they can be genetic, or structural. They can arise following injuries or infections, or have no known cause. Some conditions are more common, and have treatment options available - like ADH...

Your brain is an incredibly complex network. The firing circuits of your brain and nervous system shape everything from what you’ll eat for breakfast, to keeping your heart beating while you sleep. But what happens when the firing of those circuits goes awry? Well, researchers are learning how to fix them: whether it’s using vagus nerve stimulation to safeguard people with epilepsy from the worst...

Are two of the most talked-about drugs in our culture today quietly reshaping how we understand the brain? Host Fiona Sanderson sits down with two researchers exploring the intersection of metabolic health and neuroscience - including how cannabis impacts the nervous system's ability to regulate blood flow to the brain, why GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic work brilliantly for some people and not at all f...

What if we could stop treating illness by trial and error, and actually understand the signals that our brains are giving us? Host Fiona Sanderson sits down with two of Canada's bold early-career clinician-scientists to explore the cutting edge of mental healthcare - including using brainwave patterns to predict which treatments will work, novel imaging methods that capture the brain in real time,...

What if the brain could repair itself all along, and we just needed to learn how to help it? In this debut episode of Bold Minds, host Fiona Sanderson sits down with three of Canada's bold early-career neuroscientists to explore the cutting edge of brain regeneration, including stem cell and myelin biology, the support cells in our brains that might be responsible for stress regulation, and the su...

There are many questions yet to decipher in brain disease research - but advances in neuroscience are providing new tools to explore how treatments may change the brain…making now the right time for the bold minds on the cutting edge to come together and find us the answers we need to improve the lives of Canadians and beyond! Bold Minds premieres March 3, 2026, so subscribe to Bold Minds to be th...

The human brain is one of the most complex structures we know of in the universe. It’s at the root of who we are as humans. And yet, we know so little about it. Across Canada, researchers are working on the next big breakthrough in brain science. What if we could bring these bold minds together to share their discoveries and build on each other's success? That’s part of our mission at Brain Canada...