Dr. Romina Mizrahi is the Head of the Focus on Youth Psychosis Prevention (FYPP) Clinic and research program, Head of the Psychosis PET program in the Research Imaging Centre and Clinician Scientist in the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute at CAMH. Dr. Mizrahi is an Associate Professor in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto (U of T), a full Member of the Institute of Medical Science (IMS) at U of T and a full Graduate Faculty Member in the Pharmacology & Toxicology Department at U of T. She received her MD (1998) from the University of Buenos Aires and PhD (2007) from IMS.
Areas of Research
Dr. Mizrahi’s research focuses on developing a better understanding of how the brain functions in-vivo. Specifically, it focuses on the pathophysiology of the early course of schizophrenia and its treatment and of those at high risk of developing psychosis. In pursuit of this goal, her lab uses phenomenology, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET). Dr. Mizrahi's ultimate goal is to prevent schizophrenia in those at risk.
She has received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Ontario Mental Health Foundation (OMHF) to study dopamine using positron emission tomography (PET) in early psychosis and in those at risk for the disease. She also leads a new line of research to use a new F-18 radioligand to image neuroinflammation in-vivo and was in charge of translating this radioligand from the bench to the bedside at CAMH. This novel line of research received support of the Scottish Rite Charitable Foundation, the Alzheimer Society of Canada and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation to carry out the first human experiments. Using this new radioligand, her lab is currently investigating neuroinflammation in schizophrenia, clinical high risk for psychosis, Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. Dr. Mizrahi has recently been awarded a $1.6-million grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH, US) to follow up on her neuroinflammation work. Dr. Mizrahi has also just started the first human imaging studies of endocannabinoid metabolism in schizophrenia and clinical high risk for psychosis. This work has received initial funding from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (US) and NIMH (US).
Publications
View Dr. Mizrahi's publications on PubMed.