Conférence organisée conjointement avec NeuroQAM (Centre de recherche en neurosciences de l’Université du Québec à Montréal)
Yuri Rassovsky
UCLA / Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv
Le vendredi 25 avril 2014 à 15h au DS-1950
Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia: Bridging the Gap between Neurocognitive Deficits and Functional Outcome
Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate substantial neuropsychological deficits, which are to a major extent responsible for patients’ poor real-world functioning. However, the nature of this connection is complex. Theoretical models and recent studies using statistical modeling approaches suggest that multiple intervening factors are involved. To better understand the ways neurocognitive deficits affect functional outcome it is necessary, on the one hand, to dissect the nature of neurocognitive functions that are impaired in schizophrenia, and, on the other hand, to examine the variables that mediate this relationship. This presentation will describe the basis for the increasing interest in the neuropsychology of schizophrenia. It will then focus on the presenters primary area of research, examining early visual processing deficits in schizophrenia and their implications for patients’ real-world functioning. Representative studies of this effort will be discussed, along with studies that examined potential intervening variables, such as social perception and negative symptoms, which might further explain patients’ difficulties in adaptive functioning.
Biographie
Dr. Yuri Rassovsky is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology and the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, and an Associate Research Psychologist at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. He has earned his undergraduate degrees in psychology and philosophy at UCLA, and subsequently attained a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Minnesota. He then completed post-doctoral fellowships in neuropsychology and neuroimaging at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital, funded by the NIMH Training Grant. He is a past recipient of the International Congress for Schizophrenia Research Young Investigator Award and the Society of Biological Psychiatry Eli Lilly Travel Fellowship. Dr. Rassovsky’s research focuses on neurocognitive deficits in severe mental illness and neurological disorders and the implications of these deficits for adaptive functioning. He recently completed studies funded by the Young Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression and a grant from NIMH, investigating visual perception and social cognition in schizophrenia.