Canadian HERO Study - identifying markers of stress activation and resilience in young children.

How can we tell how stressed a child really is? The HERO (Health’s Early Roots and Origin) study is giving parents, providers, and communities new ways to measure child stress and resilience to better support healthy development.

Some stress can help kids grow, but too much for too long can be harmful. Behaviour shows part of the story, HERO looks deeper, studying how a child’s body responds to stress to reveal the full picture. Join the Mathison Centre and Palix Foundation, Alberta Family Wellness Initiative for a seminar with Dr. Patricia Silveira (McGill University), principal investigator of the HERO study. She will share how early experiences, both positive and challenging, influence resilience, and what this means for children’s futures.

Date: Friday, October 17, 2025, 10:00–11:00 AM MT

Location: Room G384, HSC Building, 3330 Hospital Drive N.W., Calgary, AB 

This event is open to the public, with tickets available for in-person and Zoom

About Dr. Patricia Silveira:

Dr. Patricia Silveira, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and Associate Director of McGill’s Integrated Program in Neuroscience (IPN). She leads the Environmental Adversity, Neurodevelopment and Mental Health research group at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and serves as Scientific Director of the Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics & Mental Health.

Her research explores how early-life environments interact with genetics to influence lifelong health and disease risk. Dr. Silveira is known for developing a novel gene network–based method, expression-based Polygenic Risk Scores (ePRS), to better understand how early adversity shapes neurodevelopment and behaviour.