DE LA FUENTE SANDOVAL, FRANCISCO CAMILO

Since I began my career in academic psychiatry, I have been actively involved in research, teaching and university service within the Department of Neuropsychiatry at the Instituto Nacional de Neurología y Neurocirugía Manuel Velasco Suárez (INNN). During my early years at the INNN I established both First-Episode Psychosis (FEP) and The Adolescent Study of Neuropsychiatric Assessment and Imaging (PIENSA) Outpatient Research Programs. I also coordinate the evaluation and treatment of antipsychotic-naïve FEP individuals in the inpatient Neuropsychiatry Department. Early psychosis patients at the INNN are assessed with functional neuroimaging, electrophysiology, neurocognition, and genetics, before and after antipsychotic treatment. Medical students, residents and postgraduate students who are interested in this area of investigation become part of the research team and actively participate in research. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only facility in Mexico with such a program that recruits these valuable clinical populations.

Because of my work in this important area of investigation, I have been able to establish collaborations both nationally, with several Mexican academic institutions, and internationally with the University of California, San Diego, Cornell University and Columbia University, New York, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto. I have received funding as a Principal Investigator to study potential disease biomarkers such as glutamate and GABA measured by Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (CONACyT), and the effect of different treatment modalities such as antipsychotic medication and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (Mexico City Institute for Science and Technology - ICyTDF). I am the Co-Principal Investigator on an R21 through the Fogarty Institute and the NIMH to study inflammatory biomarkers in early psychosis, co-investigator on an R34 through the NIMH to study compensatory cognitive training in clinical high risk youth, and co-investigator on an R01 to study biomarkers of conversion risk and treatment response in early-stage Schizophrenia. Since 2009, I have received support through the CONACyT’s National System of Investigators (SNI).