CAMH’s expanded new Research Imaging Centre, which opened in 2011, is one of the few brain imaging centres in the world fully dedicated to research on mental illness and addictions.

Over the past 20 years, our work in PET (positron emission tomography) has had a major global impact in understanding brain chemistry and functioning, which has been applied to clinical treatment and drug development.

Our team has developed half of all the chemical brain probes (radiotracers) commonly used in PET imaging around the world. Using these probes, we have:
• enabled more accurate medication doses for depression and schizophrenia
• identified targets for treatments of illnesses such as post-partum depression
• found chemical brain markers that identify the risk of illnesses such as schizophrenia before they develop
• enabled more effective drug development by pharmaceutical companies and academic centres

In our expanded facility, scientists will be studying the brain using functional MRI, and combining the use of imaging with genetic markers and behaviour tests. The ground-breaking work conducted under the banner of the Vivian M. Rakoff PET Centre will continue as part of the new Research Imaging Centre.