Our team investigates the brain alterations that occur during the lifespan in health and disease. The primary goal of our research is to further our understanding of healthy brain aging and the underlying mechanisms that cause deviation from this trajectory in neurodegenerative disorders.

• Creating a comprehensive multi-scale model of structural and functional brain alterations across the lifespan using multimodal brain MRIs
• Investigating the link between observed MRI changes in post-mortem samples and the underlying cellular alterations, with translational applications for in vivo datasets
• Identifying the genetic and environmental risk factors that cause deviation from the normative brain-behaviour trajectories, to develop diagnostic and prognostic models.

Yashar Zeighami, PhD, received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and his Masters degree in Biomedical Engineering from University of Tehran. He finished his PhD in Neuroscience at McGill University in 2018 working at Human Dopamine Neuroimaging Lab studying Parkinson’s disease progression via brain network. Dr. Zeighami visited Allen Institute for Brain Sciences as a visiting scholar during his PhD. He did his postdoctoral fellowship at the McGill Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (MCIN).

Fundings:

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Operating Grants (2024-2029)
• Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grants (2023-2028)
• Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS) Chercheurs-boursiers Junior 1 en intelligence artificielle (2022-2026)
• Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives (HBHL) Cognitive Neuroscience kNowledge Exchange for Clinical Translation (CONNECT) (2024-2025)
• Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives (HBHL) New Recruits Start-up Grant (2022-2024)
• The Research Network on cardiometabolic health, diabetes and obesity (CMDO) Grant (2023-2024)

Scholarships:

• Healthy Brains for Healthy Lives (HBHL) postdoctoral fellowship (2019-2021)
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) postdoctoral fellowship (2019-2022)
• Baxter Collaborative Travel Award (2020)
• Mitacs Globalink Research Award Abroad (2020)
• Ann and Richard Sievers Neuroscience Award (2017)
• Jeanne Timmins Costello Doctoral Fellowship (2016)
• Quebec Bio-imaging Network (QBIN) Doctoral Award (2016)
• Desjardin Studentship Award (2015)

Principal Investigator:

Yashar Zeighami, PhD

Graduate students:

Recruiting

Key publications

Full list of publications

1. Brzezinski-Rittner A, Moqadam R, Iturria-Medina Y, Chakravarty M, Dadar M, Zeighami Y. Beyond brain size: disentangling the effect of sex and brain size on brain morphometry and cognitive functioning. bioRxiv. 2024 Jun 22:2024-06.
2. Fereshtehnejad SM, Moqadam R, Azizi H, Postuma RB, Dadar M, Lang AE, Marras C, Zeighami Y. Distinct Longitudinal Clinical-Neuroanatomical Trajectories in Parkinson’s Disease Clinical Subtypes: Insight Towards Precision Medicine. medRxiv. 2024:2024-09.
3. Moqadam R, Dadar M, Zeighami Y. Investigating the impact of motion in the scanner on brain age predictions. Imaging Neuroscience. 2024 Feb 5;2:1-21.
4. Zeighami Y, Bakken TE, Nickl-Jockschat T, Peterson Z, Jegga AG, Miller JA, Schulkin J, Evans AC, Lein ES, Hawrylycz M. A comparison of anatomic and cellular transcriptome structures across 40 human brain diseases. PLoS biology. 2023 Apr 20;21(4):e3002058.
5. Zeighami Y., Dadar, M., Daoust, J., Pelletier, …, Michaud, A. (2021) Impact of Weight Loss on Brain Age: Improved Brain Health Following Bariatric Surgery, arXiv
6. Zeighami, Y., & Evans, A. (2021). “Association versus Prediction: the impact of cortical surface smoothing and parcellation on brain age”. Frontiers in Big Data. 4 2021: 15.
7. Zeighami, Y., Iceta, S., Dadar, M., Pelletier, …, D., Michaud, A. (2021). “Spontaneous Neural Activity Changes after Bariatric Surgery: a resting-state fMRI study”. Neuroimage, 241, 118419.
8. Zeighami, Y., Fereshtehnejad, S.M.,Postuma, R. , Dagher, A. (2019) “Assessment of a prognostic MRI biomarker in early de novo Parkinson’s disease” NeuroImage: Clinical 24, 101986
9. Zeighami, Y., Fereshtehnejad, S.M., Dadar, M., Collins, D. L., Postuma, R., Misic, B., Dagher, A., (2019) “A clinical-anatomical signature of Parkinson’s disease identified with partial least squares and magnetic resonance imaging” Neuroimage, 190, 69-78.
10. Pandya, S.*, Zeighami, Y.*, Dadar, M., Collins, D. L., & Dagher A., Raj, A. (2019) “Predictive model of spread of Parkinson’s pathology using network diffusion” NeuroImage, 192, 178-194.
11. Freeze, B., Pandya, S., Zeighami, Y., Raj, A., (2019) “Regional transcriptional architecture of Parkinson’s disease pathogenesis and network spread.” Brain, 142(10), 3072-3085.
12. Yau, Y. H. C.*, Zeighami, Y.*, Baker, T., Larcher, K., Vainik, U., Dadar, M., Fonov, V., Hagmann, P., Griffa, A., Misic, B., Collins, D. L., Dagher, A., (2018) “Network Connectivity Determines Cortical Thinning In Early Parkinson’s Disease Progression” Nature communications, 9(1), 1-10.
13. Dagher, A., Zeighami, Y. (2018). “Testing the Protein Propagation Hypothesis of Parkinson Disease.” Journal of experimental neuroscience, 12, 1179069518786715.
14. Dadar, M., Zeighami, Y., Yau, Y., Fereshtehnejad, S. M., Maranzano, J., Postuma, R. B., … Collins, D. L. (2018). “White matter hyperintensities are linked to future cognitive decline in de novo Parkinson’s disease patients.” NeuroImage: Clinical.
15. Fereshtehnejad, S.M., Zeighami, Y., Postuma, R., Dagher, A., (2017) “Clinical Criteria for Subtyping Parkinson’s Disease: Comparison of imaging, CSF and genetic biomarkers and longitudinal progression” Brain, 140(7), 1959-1976.
16. Zeighami, Y., Ulla, M., Iturria-Medina, Y., Dadar, M., Fonov, V., Evans, A., Collins, L., Dagher A.(2015) “Network structure of brain atrophy in de novo Parkinson’s disease.” ELife 4: e08440