Peter Hall

Contact information

Office: LHN 2731

Phone: 519-888-4567, ext. 38110

Email: pahall@uwaterloo.ca

Website: Prevention Neuroscience Laboratory

Research interests

My research examines how the brain and social environment interact to produce risk for chronic disease. Understanding such interactions may better position us to prevent the onset of physical illnesses such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease, as well as mental disorders such as depression, addictions and post-traumatic stress disorder. Our studies span the full age spectrum from childhood and adolescence to older adulthood.

Much of my lab’s research focuses on lifestyle behaviors (i.e., eating, sleep, substance use and exercise) because of the links that these behaviors have to the brain processes that confer risk for chronic disease. Methods used in our lab include neuroimaging (functional near infrared spectroscopy; fNIRS) and neuromodulation (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation; rTMS), in both experimental and longitudinal study contexts.

Funding for my research is provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR).

Graduate supervision and student opportunities

I am currently accepting applications from graduate students and undergraduate honours students in public health, biology and psychology with the following research interests:

• Social neuroscience of eating 
• Social neuroscience of addictions and mental health 

• Mobile brain imaging technology

• Neuromodulation techniques

Graduate studies application details

Teaching interests

• Social neuroscience (in physical health and mental health applications)
• Social neurobiology of eating

Education

BA, Psychology/Biology (Dalhousie University)

PhD, Clinical Psychology (University of Waterloo)

Visiting Fellowship in TMS (Duke University) 

Visiting Fellowship in TMS (Harvard Medical School)

Selected publications

See lab website for extended list of publications.

Hall, P.A., Bickel, W.K., Erickson, K.I., & Wagner, D.D. (2018). Neuroimaging, neuromodulation, and population health: The neuroscience of chronic disease prevention. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1428, 240-256.

Lowe, C.J.*, Reichelt, A.C., & Hall, P.A. (2019). The prefrontal cortex and obesity: A health neuroscience perspective. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23, 349-361.

Safati, A.B.*ǂ, & Hall, P.A.ǂ (2019). Contextual cues as modifiers of cTBS effects on indulgent eating. Brain Stimulation. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2019.05.003

Lowe, C.J.*, Staines, W.R., Manocchio, F.*, & Hall, P.A. (2018). The neurocognitive mechanisms underlying food cravings and snack food consumption. A combined continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) and EEG study. NeuroImage, 177, 45-58.

Luu, K.*, & Hall, P.A. (2017). Examining the acute effects of Hatha yoga and mindfulness meditation on executive function and mood. Mindfulness, 8, 873–880.

Lowe, C.J.*, Safati, A.*, & Hall, P.A. (2017). The neurocognitive consequences of sleep restriction: A meta-analytic review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 80, 586-604.

Hall, P.A. (2016). Executive-control processes in high-calorie food consumption. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 91-98.

* indicates trainee; ǂ indicates equal contribution; supervisor listed in last author position for trainee thesis research.