Darren Kadis
Research Positions
Scientist, Neurosciences & Mental Health
Director of the Human Neurophysiology/Magnetoencephalography (MEG) Core
Biography
Dr. Darren S. Kadis is a Scientist in the Neurosciences & Mental Health program, and Director of the Human Neurophysiology / MEG Core at SickKids. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Kadis is interested in how different regions of the brain support complex behaviour and cognition in childhood. He uses advanced neuroimaging and analytic techniques to study brain-behaviour relationships and neuroplasticity in health and disease.
Research
In the Kadis Lab, researchers use non-invasive neuroimaging to study how the brain supports language acquisition early in life, how the architecture and dynamics of the language network change in typical development, and how the network is impacted by injury, disease, and intervention. His team works most frequently with MRI and MEG, to study brain structure and function, respectively.
Kadis has extensive experience in presurgical functional mapping in MEG; he has developed protocols that are now routinely used to map language in children undergoing epilepsy surgery.
Education and experience
- 2021–present: Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, ON, Canada
- 2019–present: Scientist, Neurosciences and Mental Health, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
- 2019–2021: Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, ON, Canada
- 2012–2019: Assistant Professor, Division of Neurology, and Pediatric Neuroimaging Research Consortium, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati OH, USA
- 2012–2019: Assistant Professor, College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics; Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati OH, USA
- 2010–2012: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Division of Neurology, Neurosciences and Mental Health, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
- 2003–2010: Doctoral Program in Psychology, Collaborative Program in Neuroscience, Clinical Extension in Neuropsychology (PhD), University of Toronto, ON, Canada
- 2002–2003: Master's Program in Psychology, Collaborative Program in Neuroscience (MA), University of Toronto, ON, Canada
- 1997–2001: Specialist in Psychology, Minor in Religion (Hon B.Sc.), University of Toronto, ON, Canada
Achievements
- 2022–present: Secretary and Executive Committee (Board) member, International Society for Advancement of Clinical Magnetoencephalography (ISACM).
Publications
- Williamson, B. J., Greiner, H. M., & Kadis, D. S. (2023). Virtual lesions in MEG reveal increasing vulnerability of the language network from early childhood through adolescence. Nature Communications, 14: 7313. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43165-7.
- Sharma, V. V., & Kadis, D. S. (2024). A Powerful Metric for Expressive Language Lateralization in MEG. Neuroscience Letters, 818, 137539. DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2023.137539.
- Li, K. E., Dimitrijevic, A., Gordon, K. A., Pang, E. W., Greiner, H. M., & Kadis, D. S. (2023). Age-related increases in right hemisphere support for prosodic processing in children. Scientific Reports, 13:15849. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-43027-8
- Williamson, B. J., Barnes-Davis, M., Vannest, J., Anixt, J. S., Heydarian, H. C., Kuan, L., Laue, C. S., Pratap, N. J., Schapiro, M., Tseng, S. Y., & Kadis, D. S. (2023). Altered white matter connectivity in children with congenital heart disease with single ventricle physiology. Scientific Reports, 13:1318. DOI: 10.1038/s51598-023-28634-9
- Sharma, V. V., Vannest, J., & Kadis, D. S. (2022). Asymmetric information flow in brain networks supporting expressive language in childhood. Human Brain Mapping, 44:1062-1069. DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26136
View a full list of Darren Kadis' publications on PubMed and ResearchGate
Funding
- Pending: Technological Innovations for Clinical MRI of Brain at 7 Tesla - 7T Protocol Optimization for Paediatric Neuroimaging (sub-project). Principal Investigator (sub-project), Ontario Research Fund.
- 2022–2027: Neurobiological Mechanisms of Reading Disabilities. Co-Investigator, CIHR. $1,235,750 CAD.
- 2022–2025: Canadian Pediatric Neuroimaging Platform (C-PIP): A platform to support research in child brain health. Co-Investigator, Brain Canada, $5,605,000 CAD.
- 2021–2025: Towards biomarkers of resiliency in the extremely preterm child: a multimodal neuroimaging study of brain and development. Co-Investigator, Mentor-of-Record, NINDS / NIH, $772,100 USD.
- 2021–2025: Characterising brain network dynamics in very young children with autism using OPM-based MEG. Co-Investigator, CIHR, $1,130,000 CAD.
- 2022–2024: Neuroimaging of Hearing, Language, and Speech Processing Children with ASD. Principal Investigator. SickKids Foundation, $318,000 CAD.
- 2022–2024: A national consortium of pediatric TMS centers: Creating infrastructure to improve language mapping and support for neurosurgical decision making. Consultant. Pediatric Epilepsy Research Foundation (PERF), $300,000 USD.
- 2019–2021: Multimodal Neuroimaging Distinguishes Developmental and Disordered Phenotypes in Speech Sound Disorders. Co-Investigator, NIDCD / NIH, $452,380 USD.
- 2018–2020: Connectivity-Based Mapping of Critical Language Sites in Children Undergoing Epilepsy Surgery. Principal Investigator, NINDS / NIH, $420,819 USD.
- 2017–2018: Multimodal Neuroimaging of Preterm Language Connectome: Investigating Biomarkers of Resiliency. Mentor-of-Record, NIH K12.
- 2017–2018: Neural Signature of Reaction Time Variability (RTV) in Children with ASD. Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation, $18,000 USD.
- 2016–2018: Behavioral and Neuroimaging Outcomes in Survivors of Congenital Heart Disease. Principal Investigator, Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation, $20,000 USD.
- 2015–2018: Effects of Passive Body Heating on Postural Stability Judgement, Brain Temperature and Activity. Co-Investigator, National Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL) at NIOSH/CDC, $26,000 USD.
- 2015–2017: Multimodal Imaging of Language Networks in Children Born Preterm. Co-Investigator, Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation, $20,000 USD.
- 2015–2017: Mapping Language with fMRI-constrained MEG Effective Connectivity Analyses. Principal Investigator, Trustee Award, Cincinnati Children Research Foundation, $200,000 USD.
- 2009–2014: (involvement from 2012): The Pediatric Functional Neuroimaging Network (Cincinnati MR Imaging of Neurodevelopment – C-MIND). Co-Investigator, NIMH / NIH, $4,857,518 USD.