Assistant Professor

Jacob Ellegood

PhD, University of Alberta

Publications

Location

Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital

Address

150 Kilgour Road, Office – 5E 075, Toronto, Ontario Canada M4G 1R8

Research Interests

Biomedical Imaging, Neuroscience, Data Science and Computational Biology

At A Glance

Understanding the neuroanatomical heterogeneity in Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Using Advanced MRI techniques to understand the Neuroplasticity in Learning and Rehabilitation
Using AI techniques to help increase research MRI access to young children living with disabilities.

Short Bio

Jacob Ellegood, Ph.D. is a Scientist at the Bloorview Research institute (BRI) at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. Current interests involve 1) Understanding the heterogeneity across and within neurodevelopmental disorders, 2) using advanced neuroimaging techniques and analyses to understand the neuroplasticity of learning and rehabilitation, and 3) using AI to assist with image correction, reconstruction, and acquisition, which can help to increase accessibility, equity, and diversity in large neuroimaging datasets. He is quite collaborative and has curated long lasting relationships with researchers across Canada and around the world. Prior to starting at BRI, he worked at the Mouse Imaging Centre (MICe) at the Hospital for Sick Children where he used structural neuroimaging to redefine how neurodevelopmental disorders are diagnosed and categorized in both mice and humans.

Research Synopsis

Using MRI derived structural neuroanatomy and a spatial transcriptomic comparison, we have linked subgroups of 135 NDD relevant mouse models (3,515 individual mice) separately to two human databases, with 1,234 and 1,015 human individuals with NDDs, composed of autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), other related NDDs, and typically developing controls. Subgroups were significantly linked by consistent neuroanatomy across all three datasets, mouse and human, indicating that direct cross-species subgrouping and translation is consistent and reproducible. Four specific neuroanatomical clusters were found and linked to precise molecular mechanisms. We will be buidling upon this work to investigate the molecular mechanisms and further understand what is driving these clusters.

Recent Publications

Ellegood et al. Assigning Targetable Molecular Pathways to Transdiagnostic Subgroups Across Autism and Related Neurodevelopmental Disorders. 2025 BioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.04.641443v1

Pagani M, Zerbi V, Gini S, Alvino F, Banerjee A, Barberis A, Basson MA, Bozzi Y, Galbusera A, Ellegood J, Fagiolini M, Lerch J, Matteoli M, Montani C, Pozzi D, Provenzano G, Scattoni ML, Wenderoth N, Xu T, Lombardo M, Milham MP, Martino AD, Gozzi A. 2025 Biological subtyping of autism via cross-species fMRI. 2025 BioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.04.641400v

Silberfeld A, Roe JM, Ellegood J, Lerch JP, Qiu L, Kim Y, Lee JG, Hopkins WD, Grandjean J, Ou Y, Pourquié O. Left-Right Brain-Wide Asymmetry of Neuroanatomy in the Mouse Brain. Neuroimage. 2025 Feb 15;307:121017.

Rivera-Olvera A, Houwing DJ, Ellegood J, Masifi S, Martina SL, Silberfeld A, Pourquie O, Lerch JP, Francks C, Homberg JR, van Heukelum S, Grandjean J. The universe is asymmetric, the mouse brain too. Mol Psychiatry. 2025 Feb;30(2):489-496.

Comparative neuroimaging of sex differences in human and mouse brain anatomy. Guma E, Beauchamp A, Liu S, Levitis E, Ellegood J, Pham L, Mars RB, Raznahan A, Lerch JP. Elife. 2024 Mar 15;13:RP92200.

Graduate Students

TBD