CIHR Fellowship
2019: Awarded to Dr. Tyler Kaster for the project “Electroconvulsive Therapy: Analysis of its Safety and Efficacy”.
Adjunct Scientist ICES Central Mental Health & Addictions Research Program
Dr. Tyler Kaster is a scientist and the medical head of the Temerty Centre for Therapeutic Brain Intervention at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and a staff psychiatrist in the General & Health Systems Psychiatry Division. He is also an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.
He completed psychiatry residency in 2019 at the University of Toronto where he served as chief resident of the Clinician Scientist Program. He then completed a PhD in clinical epidemiology and healthcare research in 2021, the Royal College Clinician Investigator Program in 2021, and a fellowship in psychiatric brain stimulation in 2022 all at the University of Toronto. His fellowship training was supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research fellowship in which he used administrative health databases to examine rare outcomes such as adverse medical events or suicide death potentially associated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) amongst those with depression.
Areas of Research
Dr. Kaster’s research is focused on the clinical application of interventional psychiatry treatments for severe psychiatric illness. This is accomplished through leading and collaborating on clinical trials of new treatments including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), ketamine, magnetic seizure therapy, and psychedelics. It is also accomplished through observational studies leveraging administrative health databases of established treatments such as medications and ECT. He has received funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research to conduct both clinical trials of novel interventions as well as epidemiologic work to study the relationship between ECT and real-world outcomes for treatment-resistant psychiatric illness.
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