MERALI, Zul
Dr. Zul MeraliDirector General, Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR)
Professor of Psychology and Cellular and Molecular Medicine
Vanier Hall, Room 214
11 Marie Curie
Ottawa, ON, K2B 7N1
Phone: (613) 562-5800, ext. 4848 or (613) 722-6521, ext. 6551
Merali@uOttawa.ca
Research Interests:
Supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), our research endeavours strive to characterize the body's response to stressful and appetitive events. The analyses extend from the behavioural to the cellular and molecular levels, and involve experimental animals as well as human subjects. We are particularly interested in determining the immediate moment-to-moment changes evoked by a variety of naturalistic stressors as well as their long-term impact on behavioural and neurochemical responses to subsequent stressful events.Such studies are carried out under several different settings: tightly controlled laboratory setting, following natural disasters (such as the ice storm), accidental injuries, and daily stressors related to work environment and driving. As well, our work focuses on the influence of stressful events on the occurrence of clinical depression, eating disorders and posttraumatic disorder. We hope this research will shed light on how and why stressors evoke behavioural and physiological pathologies in vulnerable individuals. A major focus of these studies is to determine how pharmacological interventions (pharmaceutical, neutraceutical and herbal products) may attenuate stress-induced pathophysiology. In pursuit of this hypothesis, my colleagues and I have been attempting to isolate anti-anxiety compounds from a variety of rare plants from Costa Rica.
Dr. Merali has published over a hundred scientific papers and was recently interviewed on CBC radio and on the Discovery television channel (by Jay Ingram).
Search on PubMed to obtain the last 5 years publications for Dr. Merali.