Baycrest

Baycrest is driving urgently needed innovation in successful aging and brain health. Located on a 22-acre campus in Toronto, Baycrest is one of the world’s leading academic health sciences centres focused on aging.One of the few places in the world to have a world-class research institute embedded within a rich continuum of senior care services, Baycrest continues to attract some of the most influential scientists in aging and cognition and is a laboratory for unparalleled innovation in clinical care delivery to an aging population.

Baycrest’s Research Centre for Aging and the Brain includes the acclaimed Rotman ResearchInstitute, a global leader in the field of cognitive neuroscience in aging, and the Kunin-Lunenfeld Applied Research Unit (KLARU), which conducts research alongside clinicians and applies findings directly to patient care. Together the Rotman and KLARU form a continuum of research – from basic science that elucidates the fundamental mechanisms and processes of cognition to translational research that determines how best to implement this knowledge in the context of aging in the real world.

Baycrest Centre for Brain FitnessIn April 2008, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation awarded $10 million toward the creation of the Baycrest Centre for Brain Fitness (CBF), matching another $10 million in private donations. The centre’s mandate is to translate and fast-track promising cognitive assessment and training strategies into practical applications that benefit an aging population.

To do this, the centre partnered with Canada’s premiere innovation incubator MaRS to engineer and market a suite of scientifically proven brain fitness products that will be the gold standard and consolidate Ontario and Canada’s reputation in neuroscience research and innovation.

Baycrest is an ideal environment for incubating new commercial opportunities that address the challenges of the aging brain. Projects at the CBF range from social robotics to cognitive rehabilitation therapies. The researchers and clinicians at Baycrest are continually uncovering new methods for research, diagnosis and treatment of cognitive decline.

CognicitiTo commercialize the science-driven interventions coming out of the Baycrest Centre for Brain Fitness for the general population, Baycrest and MaRS created the for-profit company Cogniciti in December 2009. It aims to stake a claim in the nascent brain fitness market which is projected to grow to between one and five billion dollars by 2015. Cogniciti leverages Baycrest’s cognitive research strengths and MaRS’s expertise in growing and scaling market-driven ventures. The company’s first product will be an evidence-based cognitive training program for the workplace, aimed at optimizing the abilities of knowledge workers to reason, remember, learn, plan and adapt. Increased confidence in memory abilities, and cognitive efficiency, will lead to better performance at work.

Memory LinkBaycrest’s innovative Memory Link program blends cutting-edge brain research with emerging electronic technology to train people with severe amnesia to use smartphones and other handheld devices as assistive memory aids.

The program, delivered by psychologists, uses an evidence-based training method that taps into the client’s undamaged procedural memory. Electronic memory prosthetics have the potential to help an aging population with a wide range of memory disorders.

Computational Neuroscience and Brain Network Dynamics – the world’s first virtual brainBaycrest’s Rotman Research Institute is leading a team of international scientists in a mammoth project to create the world’s first functional, virtual brain. The effort puts Canada in a global race to pull off a neuroscience feat that is comparable to decoding the human genome. The achievement could revolutionize how clinicians assess and treat various brain disorders, including cognitive impairment caused by stroke and Alzheimer’s disease.

The Toronto Transgenerational Brain and Body CentreThe Rotman Research Institute and the Hospital for Sick Children – two research powerhouses at different ends of the age spectrum – have teamed up to examine how environment and genes shape the human brain and cognition as well as metabolic and cardiovascular disorders from childhood to old age.

They’ve created the Toronto Transgenerational Brain and Body Centre to carry out this massive population science project. It’s the first of its kind in North America and will recruit hundreds of multigenerational family members from various ethnic groups, yielding vital data that will inform future interventions toward successful aging. Internet intervention for family caregivers

Baycrest has developed an internet-based video conferencing intervention program for dementia caregivers to help them sustain their caregiving tasks without compromising their own health. Supporting the health of the caregiver with electronically delivered educational and psychosocial supports can help delay the costly institutionalization of those with dementia, which translates into substantial savings for the Province.

Contact Information

Baycrest
3560 Bathurst Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M6A 2E1
Phone: 416-785-2500
Fax: 416-785-2378
Website: www.baycrest.org