Sylvia Villeneuve

Sylvia Villeneuve is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and holds the Canada Research Chair in Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease (Tier 2). She leads the Multimodal imaging of the aging brain lab at the Douglas Research Centre, affiliated with the Aging, Cognition, and Alzheimer’s Disease theme-based group. Her research focuses on using MRI and PET neuroimaging to identify cerebral markers for early Alzheimer’s disease detection, study disease mechanisms, and assess risk/protective factors like vascular health and nutrition.

Education: PhD from Université de Montréal (2011), followed by postdoctoral fellowships at UC Berkeley (2011–2014) and Northwestern University (2014–2015). She joined McGill in 2015 and is a member of the Ordre des Psychologues du Québec.

Research Interests: Alzheimer’s early detection, multimodal neuroimaging (MRI/PET), biomarker development, vascular-cognitive interactions, and preclinical disease progression. Her lab integrates structural/functional imaging, amyloid/tau PET, neuropsychological testing, and vascular assessments to track disease trajectories.

Key Achievements: Over 40 peer-reviewed publications, including high-impact studies in Brain and JAMA Neurology. Recognized with awards such as the Human Amyloid Imaging Young Investigator Award (2014) and CIHR Brain Star Award (2012). Leads the PREVENT-AD Cohort and recent grants include Weston funding for sleep-Alzheimer’s links (2024).

Team: Supervises graduate students Alexa Pichet Binette and Jacob Vogel. Collaborates on initiatives like the Stop-AD Centre (FRQ-funded) and SCARF2 biomarker studies.