The brain bank

Dr. Sean Hill is another world-leader in his field who saw CAMH as the place to take his work to the next level.

Lured away from the prestigious Blue Brain Project in Geneva, Switzerland to become the inaugural Director of the Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics two years ago, Dr. Hill saw CAMH’s dual-role as a research centre and a hospital as the perfect place to apply the raw power of big data collection and machine learning to real-world patient care.

The BrainHealth Databank at CAMH is one of those applications. Supported by the CAMH Discovery Fund, and created in collaboration with patients and patient family representatives across the hospital, it is intended to make possible truly individualized care for each patient.

“We have built out an informatics infrastructure that essentially is the answer to how you get artificial intelligence and machine learning into the care process,” says Dr. Hill. “This is a model for how to build the basis of a fundamental transformation using evidence-based mental health measurement and evidence-based care.”

Harnessing that vast computing power also allows the neuroinformatics team at CAMH to collaborate on increasingly complex investigations like whole person modelling to mental illness research. One example is the assistance Dr. Hill’s team is bringing to a large CAMH study that is currently launching. This study aims to follow a large number of children and youth to understand who is at highest-risk for developing early psychosis, for which early diagnosis and intervention can be life-saving.

Dr. Hill believes that the principles of neuroinformatics being applied at CAMH can potentially lead to new understanding and breakthroughs for all types of mental illness.

“I am optimistic that being able to build a better and more precise picture of a particular mental illness that an individual has means that we will be able to directly treat it and directly cure it.”