News

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24/06/2025 - Professor Ruocco is part of  a multidisciplinary team of researchers across multiple institutions receiving a $4.9M grant to build reproducible artifical intelligence frameworks for brain health. Awarded by Brain Canada, the Brain Health Data Challenge platform, led by Dr. Tristan Glatard at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health, creates a "secure, privacy-compliant framework to enable artifical intelligence competitions using Canadian brain health data".

26/05/2025 - Etinosa Oliogu, Ph.D. student in the Clinical Psychology program and current student in Professor Ruocco's laboratory, receives a Doctoral Research Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. This award supports high-calibre doctoral students in Canada by fostering excellence in research and providing a high-quality training experience. Etinosa's research explores how intense stress influences decision-making in individuals who have recently attempted suicide compared to those who have only experienced suicidal thoughts. By combining behavioural assessments and in-depth interviews, the study aims to uncover patterns that could inform more effective suicide prevention strategies.

01/04/2025 -  Professor Ruocco is elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association. Fellows have made a distinguished contribution to the advancement of the science or profession of psychology or who have given exceptional service to their national or provincial associations.

20/02/2025 -  Professor Ruocco is an editorial board reviewer for Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, published by the American Psychological Association.

05/02/2025 -  Professor Ruocco is a Co-Investigator on a newly awarded CIHR Project Grant led by Dr. Yuliya Nikolova at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health investigating novel markers of risk for age-related neurodegeneration, senescence, and cognitive decline in adults with substance use disorders. Professor Ruocco is also a Co-Investigator on a CIHR Planning grant led by Dr. Lena Quilty at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health to identify research priorities for cognitive interventions for substance use disorder.

09/01/2025 -  Professor Ruocco is a Co-Investigator on two newly awarded CIHR Project Grants. The first study, led by Dr. Joshua Rosenblat at Toronto Western Hospital, is a clinical trial combining ketamine with dialectical behavioural therapy for suicidality in individuals with treatment resistant depression and borderline personality disorder. The second study is led by Dr. Sergio Rueda at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health and evaluates the ability of cannabis consumers to effectively titrate their THC dose to achieve similar effects when consuming cannabis concentrates of different potencies.

01/01/2025 -  Professor Ruocco is a Mentor, together with Dr. Lars Kasper, on a Young Investigator Grant awarded to Dr. Andreea Diaconescu at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health. Awarded by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in the United States, the award enables promising investigators to begin careers as independent research faculty and gather pilot data to apply for larger federal grants. Dr. Diaconescu's grant-funded research focuses on cognitive network modeling for suicide prevention in borderline personality disorder.

15/5/2024 -  Undergraduate student in Profesor Ruocco's laboratory, Sapolnach Prompiengchai, receives a 2024 University of Toronto Excellence Award. The award  provides the opportunity for undergradiate students to gain research experience. Sapolnach will carry out research on time perception and biases toward thoughts of death in adults with and without suicidal thoughts and behaviours.

29/3/2024 -  Professor Ruocco is invited to present to the Department of Psychiatry at UConn Health on April 19, 2024. He will speak about his latest research findings on neurocognition and brain biology in borderline personality disorder.

8/3/2024 -  Professor Ruocco will present his research on cognition and brain biology in borderline personality disorder to the Department of Psychiatry at the University Institute of Mental Health of Montreal (IUSMM) on March 22, 2024.

23/2/2024 -  Orly Lipsitz, Ph.D. student in the Clinical Psychology program and current student co-supervised by Dr. Ruocco and Dr. Rosenblat, is awarded a Usona Institute Scholarship. The award supports Orly's research on neurocognitive contributors to functional recovery following cognitive behavioural therapy and intravenous ketamine for major depressive disorder. The randomized, Midazolam-controlled clinical trial is led by Dr. Rosenblat at Toronto Western Hospital.

1/2/2024 -  Etinosa Oliogu, M.A. student in the Clinical Psychology program and current student in Professor Ruocco's laboratory, receives a 2024 University of Toronto Student Leadership Award. The award recognizes outstanding student leadership, volunteer service, and commitment to the university.

28/12/2023 -  Professor Ruocco's research on the effects of magnetic seizure therapy on suicidal ideation in borderline personality disorder is selected by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation as a 2023 Leading Research Achievement.

21/11/2023 -  Orly Lipsitz, Ph.D. student in the Clinical Psychology program and current student in Professor Ruocco's laboratory, is awarded a Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Sex, Gender, and Neuroscience Graduate Fellowship from the University of Toronto.

13/10/2023 - Professor Ruocco moderates an expert panel discussion titled "Equitable Health Data Collection, From Grassroots to Social Change: Experiences in Mental Health" at the Building Communities Through Inclusive Health conference.

06/07/2023 – Etinosa Oliogu, M.A. student in the Clinical Psychology program and current student in Professor Ruocco's laboratory, receives a Master's Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and a Clinical Neuropsychology Section Student Research Award from the Canadian Psychological Association. The awards support Etinosa's research on neuropsychological functioning and psychopathology in highly lethal self-injurious behaviours.

06/07/2023 – Jacob Koudys, Ph.D. candidate in the Clinical Psychology program and current student in Professor Ruocco's laboratory, receives a Student Research Grant to support his research validating a social decision-making paradigm informed by suicide-related constructs.

06/07/2023 – Orly Lipsitz, M.A. student in the Clinical Psychology program and current student in Professor Ruocco's laboratory, receives a CIHR Doctoral Award to study the contributions of neurocognition to functional ability for individuals with depression. 

04/05/2023 – Jacob Koudys, Ph.D. candidate in the Clinical Psychology program and current student in Professor Ruocco's laboratory, is the recipient of a Branch Out Neurological Foundation Graduate Grant. Jacob proposes to explore the presence of distinct suicidality subtypes by combining clinical, behavioural, and functional neuroimaging data.

03/05/2023 - Professor Ruocco presents an invited talk titled "Reconsidering How We Think About Brain Biology in Borderline Personality Disorder" to the Australian BPD Foundation. In honour of BPD Awareness Week in Australia, the talk adopts a strengths based approach to understanding brain biology in BPD.

01/05/2023 - Professor Ruocco is the recipient of a 2022-23 Research Grant from the University of Toronto's Inlight Student Mental Health Research Initiative. Together with Ph.D. student, Michael Carnovale, Professor Amanda Uliaszek, and an expert Student Advisory Panel, the new study  examines ways to enhance the validity of student mental health symptom assessments by capturing the diversity of students' experiences.

11/04/2023 - Dean Carcone, recent graduate of the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program and a former student in Professor Ruocco's laboratory, is the recipient of the UTSC Psychology Doctoral Dissertation Award (Clinical Category). Dean's dissertation investigated the association of cumulative lifetime stress with memory, the hippocampus, and personality psychopathology.

09/02/2023 - Professor Ruocco's research on magnetic seizure therapy was recently published in the inaugural issue of Nature Mental Health and featured in an article published by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and in a news article from the University of Toronto.

27/09/2022 - Professor Ruocco will begin his appointment to the Editorial Board of The Clinical Neuropsycholoigist in January 2023.

03/08/2022 - Professor Ruocco will present as a Keynote Speaker and hold an all-day workshop at the 16th International Treatment of Personality Disorders Conference to be held on November 3-5, 2022, in Wollongong Australia. The theme of the conference is "Person-Centred Care - Holding the Brain in Mind". 

12/07/2022 - Orly Lipsitz, Master's student in the Clinical Psychology program, receives a Graduate Student Research Award (Master's) from the University of Toronto Scarborough.

01/09/2022 - Professor Ruocco was elected by the Board of the North American Society for the Study of Personality Disorders to serve as Vice President.

05/07/2022 - Professor Ruocco will serve as a Scientific Advisor for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). AFSP is the leading national not-for-profit organization exclusively dedicated to understanding and preventing suicide through research, education and advocacy. The Scientific Advisors review and advise the Foundation on the full range of its research and educational activities

06/05/2022 - Professor Ruocco presented in a session titled HiTOP, Neuropsychology, & Neurocognitive Disorders. Together with Professor Ruben Gur, the session considered the connections between cognition and psychopathology through the lens of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP).

05/05/2022 - The interview on borderline personality disorder appears in the May 2022 issue of the magazine published by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.

25/04/2022 - Achala Rodrigo, Ph.D. student in the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Toronto Scarborough, received the award for his Ph.D. dissertation titled Cognitive Control Foundations of Interpersonal Functioning.

04/04/2022 - Orly Lipsitz, Master's student in the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Toronto Scarborough, has received a Student Research Grant from the Canadian Psychological Association's Scientific Affairs Committee. Under the supervision of Professor Ruocco, Orly's Master's thesis research will adopt a dimensional approach to investigate cognitive dysfunction and functional disability in psychopathology.

28/03/2022 - New findings from Professor Ruocco's laboratory are described in The Medium, an independent student-run newspaper of the University of Toronto Mississauga.

26/03/2022 - Derek Yu, undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Scarborough, has been selected for the Laidlaw Scholars Programme. Under the supervision of Professor Ruocco, Derek will investigate the role of cognitive control in the risk for suicide attempt in major depressive disorder and borderline personality disorder.

31/01/2022 - Orly Lipsitz has received a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to support her Master's thesis research on cognition and functional disability in psychopathology.

13/01/2022 - Professor Ruocco's research funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is described in a new press release from the University of Toronto.

24/11/2021 - Professor Ruocco was awarded an Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in the February 2021 Competition. Across a series of studies, the research will investigate the reliability and validity of a novel new measure of facial emotion perception.

30/10/2021 - Professor Ruocco will present a talk, titled Cognition and Neuroimaging in Borderline Personality Disorder, to the Philadelphia Neuropsychology Society on November 17, 2021.

20/09/2021 - Professor Ruocco was interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for a Health Report program titled The Enduring Stigma Surrounding Borderline Personality Disorder.

19/08/2021 - Professor Ruocco presented a virtual talk titled The Neurobiology of Borderline Personality Disorder: Cognition, Neuroimaging and Treatment to Orygen, a youth mental health organization and research institute in Australia.

01/07/2021 - The Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship fosters the development of research skills of students who show a high level of achievement in undergraduate and early graduate studies. Cody's scholarship will support his Master's-level research on neural biomarkers of response inhibition in borderline personality disorder and major depressive disorder. Cody is co-supervised by Professor Ruocco and Professor Andy Lee.

08/06/2021 - Professor Ruocco presented What We Are Learning About Brain Biology and Borderline Personality Disorder in a "Meet The Scientist Webinar" for the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in the United States. Attended by more than 700 participants, Dr. Ruocco presented his new research on the neurobiology of borderline personality disorder, including the familial risk for the disorder and the impacts of stress on brain structure and functioning. He also presented the results of his research funded by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation examining the treatment of suicidal ideation and depression using magnetic seizure therapy in individuals with borderline personality disorder.

02/03/2021 - Hosted by the Department of Psychology's cognitive area students and faculty at McGill University, Professor Ruocco will present his research on cognition in borderline personality disorder. The talk, which will take place on March 12, 2021, is titled Neurocognition in Borderline Personality Disorder: Familial Risk, Treatment Implications, and Future Directions.

02/10/2020 - Professor Ruocco is the recipient of a 2020 Standard Research Grant ($100,000 US) from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The grant, titled A Neurocomputational Approach to Discriminate Between Suicide Ideators and Attempters, aims to develop a risk algorithm for suicide attempt that combines information across clinical, behavioural, and brain-based risk factors. The research has promise to develop a “risk calculator” that could be used in the future to inform intervention plans for at-risk patients.

01/06/2020 - The Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships Doctoral Awards (CGS-D) program provides special recognition and support to students who are pursuing a doctoral degree in a health-related field in Canada. The award provides a stipend of $30,000 per annum and a research allowance of $5,000 per annum. Tahira is co-supervised by Professor Amanda Uliaszek and Professor Ruocco.

27/05/2020 - Professor Ruocco was invited to present a webinar for the Sashbear Foundation, an organization focussed on mental health and suicide prevention. Attended by more than 600 people, Professor Ruocco’s webinar presented the latest research findings from his laboratory on the neurobiology of borderline personality disorder in families.

10/02/2020 - Professor Ruocco was invited to present his talk titled "Neurobiology of Borderline Personality Disorder: Implications for Biomarkers of the ICD-11 Pathological Personality Dimensions" at University Psychiatric Clinics (UPK) Basel. His visit to the clinic in Switzerland marks a new research collaboration focused on neuroimaging and the new ICD-11 personality disorder diagnosis.

29/10/2019 - Professor Ruocco was an invited speaker at the IASR/AFSP International Summit on Suicide Research in Miami, Florida. He presented his research on dialectical behaviour therapy and changes in brain functioning in individuals with borderline personality disorder who self-harm. The presentation was part of a symposium titled "Brain Function and Decision-Making/Imaging".

02/10/2019 - Professor Ruocco presented a lecture titled The Neurobiology of Borderline Personality Disorder at the Third Annual Kenneth R. Silk, MD Lectureship in Psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School.

22/06/2019 - The purpose of the Graduate Student Research Award is to recognize the research activities of graduate students as well as their overall contribution to the University of Toronto Scarborough.

10/06/2019 - Jacob Koudys, PhD student in Clinical Psychology, has received a prestigious CIHR Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded by the Government of Canada to invest in the country's most promising researchers. The award will support Jacob's doctoral research proposal titled Differentiating Suicide Attempters From Suicidal Ideators: A Multimodal Investigation of Impulsivity.

01/06/2019 - Dr. Jenna Traynor has received a two-year CIHR Fellowship to complete her post-doctoral research under the joint supervision of Dr. Anthony C. Ruocco (University of Toronto) and Dr. Z. Jeff Daskalakis (Centre for Addiction & Mental Health). Dr. Traynor's funded research project is titled "Magnetic Seizure Therapy for the Treatment of Treatment-Resistant Depression and Suicidality in Borderline Personality Disorder".

25/06/2018 - The award advances and recognizes individuals with highly distinguished research accomplishments and who display exceptional research promise at the University of Toronto Scarborough. A stipend of $10,000 each year for three years is provided in support of research activities.

13/04/2019 - Professor Ruocco received the award at the 2019 Annual Conference of the North American Society for the Study of Personality Disorders in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The award recognizes the achievements of mid-level investigators in the field of personality and personality disorders.

25/06/2018 - The purpose of the Graduate Student Research Award is to recognize the research activities of graduate students as well as their overall contribution to the University of Toronto Scarborough.

15/04/2017 - The Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships Doctoral Awards (CGS-D) program provides special recognition and support to students who are pursuing a doctoral degree in a health-related field in Canada. The award provides a stipend of $30,000 per annum and a research allowance of $5,000 per annum.

28/12/2016 - The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) has selected Dr. Ruocco to receive the 2017 Young Investigator Research Award. The award is in recognition of research based on Professor Ruocco's AFSP-funded study examining neuroimaging predictors of treatment outcomes for self-harming patients with borderline personality disorder. The award provides an honorarium of $1,000 and travel expenses to attend the American Association of Suicidology Annual Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 26- 29, 2017, where the study results and related research will be presented.

03/10/2016 - Achala Rodrigo, PhD student in Clinical Psychology, has received a prestigious SSHRC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded by the Government of Canada to invest in the country's most promising researchers. The award will support Achala's doctoral research proposal titled Understanding Extraversion from a Control Perspective: Integrating Neural Evidence Across Trait Measures and In Vivo Social Functioning.

17/05/2016 - The purpose of the Graduate Student Research Award is to recognize the research activities of graduate students as well as their overall contribution to the University of Toronto Scarborough.

17/05/2016 – The purpose of the award is to recognize and encourage the research activities and achievements of faculty and carries a value of $5,000 to be used toward the costs of Professor Ruocco's research activities.

15/04/2016 - The Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships Doctoral Awards (CGS-D) program provides special recognition and support to students who are pursuing a doctoral degree in a health-related field in Canada. The award provides a stipend of $30,000 per annum and a research allowance of $5,000 per annum.

11/06/2015 - Dr. Ruocco has been awarded a 2015 Early Researcher Award to support his research on neural systems dysfunctions underlying impulse control in borderline personality disorder. Funded by the Province of Ontario's Ministry of Research and Innovation, the purpose of the Early Researcher Award program is to help promising, recently-appointed Ontario researchers build their research teams of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and research associates.

02/06/2015 - The purpose of the Graduate Student Research Award is to recognize the research activities of graduate students as well as their overall contribution to the University of Toronto Scarborough.

09/08/2014 – Each year, one graduate of a Canadian university is awarded the Mackenzie King Open Scholarship to pursue graduate studies at any school in the country. Institutions nominate a small number of applicants to be considered nationally, based on their academic achievements, personal qualities, and demonstrated aptitudes. This year, Dean Carcone was selected to receive this prestigious scholarship as he begins his graduate studies in Clinical Psychology at the University of Toronto, under the joint supervision of Professor Anthony C. Ruocco and Professor Andy Lee. Dean was also awarded a Canada Graduate Scholarship-Master's award from the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada.

07/11/2014 - Dr. Ruocco's research supported by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in the United States has been selected for the unique Research Partners Program, which affords the most generous supporters of the foundation the opportunity to designate their gift to a specific scientist based on interest in a particular research topic. Professor Ruocco has been named the Families for Borderline Personality Disorder Investigator for his research on magnetic seizure therapy to treat suicidality in individuals with borderline personality disorder.