Faculty Directory | Department of Psychiatry, McGill University

Dr. King has been a professor of psychiatry at McGill University and principle investigator at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre since 1991. A school psychologist by training, Dr. King holds a PhD in educational research and vocational school psychology. Her early work on schizophrenia investigated the associations between the course of schizophrenia and family attitudes towards the patient (expressed emotion). More recent work investigates the ways in which risk factors for schizophrenia, such as genetics, prenatal stress, obstetric complications, childhood trauma, and adolescent cannabis use, influence the symptom presentations of people with schizophrenia as well as in “healthy” community controls. Taking advantage of a local natural disaster to examine the effects of prenatal stress prospectively, Dr. King and her team have been following more than 150 women who were pregnant at the time of the January 1998 ice storm, along with their babies. They have found that the severity of the mother’s stress and the timing in gestation explain variance in cognitive, behavioural, and physical development of the offspring. For example, children whose mothers suffered more severe hardship during the ice storm, such as more days without electricity, tend to have IQs that are about 10 points lower than those of low stress children. The effects of prenatal exposure are still present in the children at age 8½ years. A new study in Iowa of 300 women who experienced the severe flooding of June 2008 aims to replicate Project Ice Storm and includes a sample of women whose psychosocial risk factors and functioning had been assessed before the flooding, making this the world’s only pre-post trauma study of pregnant humans. Dr. King plans to integrate the results from her prospective and retrospective studies into a neurodevelopmental model of major mental illness.

Undergraduate: BA, Psychology, McGill University
Graduate: MEd, School Psychology, James Madison University
Graduate: PhD, Educational Research, Virginia Tech

Treasurer, Society for Research in Psychopathology

Brenner K, Liu A, Laplante DP, Lupien S, Pruessner JC, Ciampi A, Joober R, King S. Cortisol response to a psychosocial stressor in schizophrenia: blunted, delayed or normal? Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2009;34:859-868.

King S, Mancini-Marïe A, Brunet A, Walker EF, Meaney MJ, Laplante DP. Prenatal maternal stress from a natural disaster predicts dermatoglyphic asymmetry in humans. Development & Psychopathology. 2009;21:343-353.

Laplante DP, Brunet A, Schmitz N, Ciampi A, King S, Project ice storm: prenatal maternal stress affects cognitive and linguistic functioning in 5 ½ year old children. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 2008 Sep;47(9):1063-72.

Brenner K, Schmitz N, Pawliuk N, Fathalli F, Joober R, Ciampi A, King S. Validation of the CAPE with a Montreal community sample. Schizophrenia Research. 2007;95(1-3):86-95.

Laplante DP, Zelazo PR, Brunet A, Barr RG, Galbaud du Fort G, Meaney MJ, Saucier J-F, Ciampi A, King S. Functional play at 2 years of age: effects of prenatal maternal stress. Infancy. 2007;12(1):69-93.

Braehler C, Holowka D, Brunet A, Beaulieu S, Baptista T, Debruille J-B, Walker C-D, King, S. Diurnal cortisol in schizophrenia patients with childhood trauma. Schizophrenia Research. 2005;79(2-3):353-354.

King S, Joober R, Laplante DP. Understanding putative risk factors for schizophrenia: retrospective and prospective studies. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. 2005;30(5):342-348.

St-Hilaire A, Holowka D, Cunningham H, Champagne F, Pukall M, King S. Explaining variation in the premorbid adjustment of schizophrenia patients: the role of season of birth and family history. Schizophrenia Research. 2005;73(1):39-48.

King S, Rochon V, Ricard N, Steiger H, Nelis S. Determinants of expressed emotion in mothers of schizophrenia patients. Psychiatry Research. 2003;117(3):211-222.

Holowka DW, King S, Saheb D, Pukall M, Brunet A. Childhood abuse and dissociative symptoms in adult schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research. 2003;60:87-90.