From cognitive impairment to heart failure, brain and heart conditions pose one of the world’s biggest health-care challenges, exceeding all others in disease burden and mortality. Although closely linked, brain and heart diseases are currently diagnosed and treated separately. This leads to worse outcomes for patients and more pressure on Canada’s health-care system. 

With a $109 million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF), researchers from across uOttawa and affiliated hospital research institutes, together with teams from McGill University and the University of Saskatchewan, will tackle this very issue by establishing the Brain-Heart Interconnectome (BHI), to lead a paradigm shift in the study, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of these conditions. 

BHI will be co-led by Dr. Peter Liu of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and Dr. Ruth Slack of the University of Ottawa Brain and Mind Research Institute, together with eight other Principal Investigators, including Dr. Dar Dowlatshahi and Dr. Ian Graham from TOH/OHRI, as well as Dr. Hanns Lochmuller of CHEO/TOH. Learn more.