Our researchers

Eszter Szekely, PhD

Psychosocial aspects of disease

ADHD, Anxiety, Brain development, Child psychopathology, Cognitive neuroscience, Cross-cohort data harmonization, Depression, Epidemiology, Perinatal mental health, Psychiatric genetics

Principal Investigator, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University

Contact details

(514) 340-8222 ext. 27647

eszter.szekely@mcgill.ca

Assistant contact details

Kathelijne Keeren,
Research Coordinator
(514) 340-8222 ext. 27647
kathelijne.keeren@ladydavis.ca

Snapshot

Eszter Szekely, PhD is the Principal Investigator of the Perinatal Mental Health and Parenting Lab. Her research lab is focusing on improving families’ mental health during the perinatal period (from pregnancy through the baby’s first year of life) using observational, clinical, genomic, and neuroimaging research methods.

She is the Director of the Perinatal Multisite Databank, an ongoing clinical cohort of patients receiving perinatal mental health services at one of seven participating hospital sites in Quebec. The aim of the databank is to improve patient care and promote evidence-based practice in perinatal psychiatry.

She is also an integral member of the DREAM BIG research consortium that harmonizes key measures across seven longitudinal birth cohorts to explore the early life origins of major psychiatric disorders in childhood. Within DREAM BIG, her work explores how the prenatal environment, genomic variability, and the early parental care affect child mental health, particularly the development of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Important Links :

Eszter Szekely's profile at the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University

Major Research Activities

The specific research areas in the laboratory include:

The role of adult attachment in perinatal mental health
Perinatal mental health in the COVID-19 pandemic
Negative/traumatic child birth experience and mother-infant bonding
The effect of prenatal stress on child development
Parenting and parent-child interventions
Mother-infant neural synchrony
The neurobiological basis of childhood mental disorders, and
Brain development in ADHD

Recent Publications and References

The DREAM BIG project as a model for harmonizing early measures of parental care and parent-child interactions across epidemiological cohorts.
Szekely E, Laplante D, Tiemeier H, Evans J, Pearson R, Bekkhus M, Bakermans-kranenburg M, van IJzendoorn M, Wazana, A. (2023). Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 2. 10.3389/frcha.2023.1206922.
Maternal Prenatal Mood, Pregnancy-Specific Worries, and Early Child Psychopathology: Findings From the DREAM BIG Consortium.
Szekely E, Neumann A, Sallis H, Jolicoeur-Martineau A, Verhulst FC, Meaney MJ, Pearson RM, Levitan RD, Kennedy JL, Lydon JE, Steiner M, Greenwood CMT, Tiemeier H, Evans J, Wazana A. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2021 Jan;60(1):186-197. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2020.02.017.
Prenatal stress and child development.
Wazana A, Szekely E, Oberlander TF. (Eds.). (2021). Prenatal stress and child development. Springer Nature Switzerland. ISBN: 978-3030601584.
Defining the neural substrate of the adult outcome of childhood ADHD: A multimodal neuroimaging study of response inhibition.
Szekely E, Sudre GP, Sharp W, Leibenluft E, Shaw P. Am J Psychiatry. 2017 Sep 1;174(9):867-876. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.16111313.
Multimodal mapping of the brain’s functional connectivity and the adult outcome of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Sudre G, Szekely E, Sharp W, Kasparek S, Shaw P. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Oct 31;114(44):11787-11792. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1705229114.

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Our researchers

Eszter Szekely, PhD

Psychosocial aspects of disease

Contact details

Assistant contact details

Snapshot

Important Links :

Major Research Activities

Recent Publications and References

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