Dr. Wei-li Chang is a scientist at the Brain Health Imaging Centre and a psychiatrist in the General and Health Systems Psychiatry Division at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Originally from Houston, Texas, she received her undergraduate degree in the Program in Human Biology at Stanford University, her MD and PhD in Neuroscience at the University of California San Diego, and completed psychiatric residency training and postdoctoral research at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute prior to joining CAMH and the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry.
Areas of Research
Dr. Chang leads a translational research group focused on how aversive life experiences increase the risk for psychiatric symptoms. Her lab studies neural circuits across species, using molecular tools and systems neuroscience approaches in mouse models as well as clinical trials and functional neuroimaging in patient populations to investigate how brain plasticity across the lifespan can be both a source of psychiatric vulnerability and a target for potential therapeutics. As a psychiatrist, Dr. Chang specializes in treating disorders that motivate her research: depression, anxiety, PTSD, and related disorders.
Publications
View Dr. Chang's publications on Google Scholar or see below for key publications.
- Santiago A, Castello-Saval J, Nguyen PT, Chung H, Levitz J, Luna VM, Hen R, Chang WL*. (2026) Effects of electroconvulsive shock on the function, circuitry, and transcriptome of dentate gyrus granule neurons. Neuropsychopharmacol. 2026 Jun;51(7):1258-1266. PMCID: PMC13212720 Read here
- Chang WL*, Tegang K, Samuels BA, Saxe M, Wichmann J, David DJ, Mendez David I, Augustin A, Fischer H, Golling S, Lamerz J, Roth D, Graf M, Santarelli L, Jagasia R, Hen R. (2025) Pharmacological enhancement of adult hippocampal neurogenesis improves pattern separation in young and aged male mice. Biol Psychiatry Glob Open Sci. 5(2), 100419. PMCID: PMC11741898 Read here
- Chang WL & Hen R. (2024) Adult neurogenesis, context encoding, and pattern separation: A pathway for treating overgeneralization. Adv Neurobiol, 38: 163-93. PMID: 39008016 [Review] Read here