We are also engaging in the development of measurement approaches that allow us to investigate the relationship between executive functions and everyday life behavior. We have developed computerized assessment batteries using several traditional experimental tasks for executive functioning, and also rating scales to assess executive behaviour. Supported by a MITACS Global Link grant, we established a key collaboration with a large private industry in Colombia and we are examining executive functions in their employees, allowing us to generate insights into the relationships between executive functions, intelligence, personality, and leadership. With the data we are collecting through our multiple research studies and collaborations, we are interested in developing a theoretical framework for executive functions, known as INTERACT, which aims at explaining executive functioning from a psychometric standpoint using latent variable analyses, as well from dynamic approaches using experimental designs and interventions.

Committed to understating executive functions across the lifespan, we have examined behavioural patterns of executive control in typical early development, adolescent, adulthood, and aging. With Dr. Stuart MacDonald at the University of Victoria, we obtained a five-year NSERC grant to examine both intra-individual variability in executive control performance and neural markers of cognitive control decline during typical aging. Dr. Garcia-Barrera also received more recently NSERC funding to examine executive functioning plasticity in older adults.

The BC Heads Together Think Tanks, a joint summit of multiple key stakeholders’ perspectives and research evidence and led by Janelle Breese Biagioni, RPC, MPCC (CEO of the CGB Centre for Traumatic Life Loses), yielded several recommendations and calls for action to address the current mental health and addictions crisis we are undergoing in BC and in Canada overall. Responding to their findings, we joined Janelle and an outstanding team of researchers from The University of Victoria and The University of British Columbia, and we are undertaking a multi-year project to gather data and knowledge for the purpose of developing a Consensus Statement on Research and Community Priorities, which could include best practices in serving individuals with a brain injury and concurrent mental health conditions and substance use/addiction challenges. Our first year focused on overdose survivors (2022), year 2 focused on survivors of intimate partner violence (2023), and our third year (2024) on people with lived experiences of homelessness and other forms or inadequate or insecure housing. This is our first community-engaged study, conceived by the community members and designed in a collaborative effort. We are funded by the Vancouver Foundation and the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions of British Columbia, Canada.

We strongly believe that psychedelic research is an important place for integrating Indigenous knowledge given the widespread use of a variety of psychedelics by Indigenous communities worldwide. While psychedelic use is not well understood in Canada’s Indigenous communities, it is shown in Indigenous American’s that peyote continues to be used today and the Aztecs used psilocybin-containing mushrooms. Inspired by a desired to integrate Indigenous ways of knowing, we have started a line of work examining the effects of psilocybin on cognition, while also examining the feasibility of using psilocybin as part of the treatment of athletes and others in the community experiencing persistent post-concussion symptoms.