91社区

Dr. Pruessner is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, 91社区 and Associate Researcher at the Research Centre of the Douglas Mental Health University Institute. Together with Dr. Ashok Malla, she has established the Clinic for Assessment of Youth at Risk (CAYR) in 2005. CAYR is a sub-program of the Prevention and Early intervention Program for Psychosis (PEPP) at the Douglas institute and monitors and supports individuals at ultra-high risk for the development of psychosis. In her role as coordinator of the CAYR program over 10 years, she has been responsible for administrative, clinical and research aspects of the clinic.
Dr. Pruessner initiated a major research project on the association between stress, hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis regulation and hippocampal volume in individuals at ultra-high risk (UHR) for the development of psychosis, first episode psychosis (FEP) patients and healthy controls. She has collected data and published findings on multiple measures related to stress in these populations including subjective stress, putative protective factors (self-esteem, social support, coping skills), stress hormone regulation (cortisol awakening response, cortisol response to acute stress), structural magnetic resonance imaging data (e.g. hippocampal volume), cognition, and early life adversity (childhood trauma, parental bonding).