We are interested in the development and reorganization of language functions in the healthy brain, but also in children and adolescents with various clinical conditions, such as premature birth, epilepsy or congenital heart disease.
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Congratulations to Charles Lepage on successfully defending his PhD thesis!
Thesis title: The role of parental stress in the motor, cognitive, and behavioral development of preschool‑aged children with congenital heart disease. We are extremely proud of Charles and all the work he has accomplished at the LIONlab. Congratulations Charles on this remarkable achievement, and we wish you the best for the next steps of your career.
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Congratulations to Sandrine Patenaude, Charlotte Savard, and Noémie Racine for presenting their work at the Congrès Québécois de la Recherche Mère-Enfant 2026 (CQRME).
Sandrine Patenaude presented a comparative study of glycemic monitoring methods in premature newborns.
Charlotte Savard gave a poster presentation titled: Resting-State Functional Brain Connectivity at 42 Months in Children Born with Congenital Heart Disease: Comparison with Healthy Peers.
Noémie Racine gave a poster presentation titled: Executive Functioning and Functional Brain Connectivity in Young Children with Congenital Heart Disease.
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The study by Andréanne René, “Prenatal linguistic exposure shapes language brain responses at birth”, published in August 2025 in Communications Biology, explores how prenatal exposure to a foreign language influences newborns’ brain responses. This study was conducted with Laura Caron-Desrochers as co-first author.
The research has received wide media coverage, including:
A big congratulations to Andréanne and Laura for this outstanding contribution to neurodevelopmental research.
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A big congratulations to Sarah Kessouri and Noémie Racine, who participated in the RBC Race for Kids alongside the CIRENE team (Integrated Center for Child Neurodevelopment Network) and the Neurocardiac Investigation Clinic at CHU Sainte-Justine. The team successfully raised over $9,000 during the event! These funds will go directly to the CINC funds, supporting projects and care for our young patients. Thank you to all participants for their dedication and generosity.
We are currently looking for healthy children whose mother tongue is French to participate in some of our projects.
Target ages:
We are also looking for pregnant women who wish to participate in one of our studies after the birth of their child.