Peter Hall

Cross appointment with the Department of Psychology 

Contact information

Office: LHN 2731

Phone: 519-888-4567, ext. 48110

Email: pahall@uwaterloo.ca

Website: Prevention Neuroscience Laboratory

Research interests

I am interested in translational neuroscience for the public health context. Within this framework, I have three major research areas:  

1. The social neurobiology of disease prevention; that is, the study of specific ways in which the brain interacts with the social world to produce (or mitigate) disease risk. This is relevant to the major disease-related threats of our time, including obesity, diabetes, cancer and infectious illnesses such as COVID-19. 
2. Development of new cognitive assessment paradigms to measure brain health in ways that are conceptually meaningful, and make use of advances in magnetic brain stimulation technology (rTMS) and/or flexible neuroimaging paradigms for everyday life, such as functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). 
3. Social and neurobiological influences on mental health, particularly in the context of PTSD and affective disorders. 

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.