Maja Nikolic

McGill University

“The Causes of Mental Health Problems in Youth Followed from Birth”

The winner of the Goetz Construction Scholarship, valued at $4,000, is Maja Nikolic of McGill University and the Montreal Neurological Institute. This award is sponsored by J.G. Goetz Construction Ltd., a sewer and watermain contractor, whose generous financial backing allowed this scholarship to be created.

As part of her master's thesis project, Maja’s research will be the first of its kind to use a longitudinal birth cohort to study positron emission tomography in people at risk of mood, anxiety and substance use disorders. If successful, Maja's project holds the potential to change the way that psychiatric disorders are diagnosed, and may provide new evidence for early treatment and intervention strategies. More about Maja's Stratas-sponsored research can be found below:

Maja Nikolic is a master’s student in McGill University’s neuroscience program.

Her lab is the first to measure brain chemistry and function in youth who have been followed from birth. Preliminary results suggest that a small number of life experiences, personality traits, and brain features can predict who will develop a psychiatric disorder.

Her thesis project will pursue this idea further by doubling the sample size allowing the three-factor model to be tested with greater confidence.

If the expected results are obtained, they could transform our understanding of the causes of mental health problems and point the way to the critical targets for early intervention strategies.