Dr. Colin Hawco is a scientist in the Brain Health Imaging Centre at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), as well as an assistant professor of psychiatry and an associate member of the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto.
Areas of Research
Dr. Hawco's research is focused on cognitive functioning and individual variability, using a combination of methods, including functional brain imaging (fMRI), brain structure and brain stimulation (TMS). Deficits in cognitive processing and social cognition are common across numerous psychiatric disorders, and relate to real-world functional outcomes. Understanding how these processes work in both psychiatric and non-psychiatric populations is important for developing treatments to improve overall outcomes in our patients.
Current work focuses on individual variability across psychiatric and non-psychiatric individuals. In particular, Dr. Hawco's research is considering the extent to which people with psychiatric disorders show diagnostically distinct differences, or fall along a continuum also observed in the non-psychiatric population. He is taking a trans-diagnostic approach, examining the range of variability and brain function across individuals with different diagnoses, as well as individuals without a psychiatric diagnosis. Statistical approaches include regression, multivariate approaches (such as partial least squares), and unsupervised classification (for example, clustering).
Another area of active research is measuring changes in brain function following treatment interventions. Understanding how a given treatment targets and modifies specific brain systems can advance research aimed at both optimizing treatment via better target engagement, as well as helping to build predictive models of treatment response.
Publications
View Dr. Hawco's publications on PubMed.