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Giulia Cattarinussi, M.D.’s SIRS Journey

Giulia Cattarinussi, M.D.

PhD Student, Research Assistant

Department of Neuroscience, University of Padova, Padova, Italy

 

I have always been interested in how the brain controls our thoughts and behaviors. When I started Medical School, from the very beginning I focused my target to become a psychiatrist, and I developed a deep interest in the brain mechanisms underlying psychosis. During my training in Psychiatry, alongside my clinical work with adolescents and young adults, I started exploring the brain abnormalities associated with the risk for psychosis. To do so, I employed functional magnetic resonance imaging, a non-invasive neuroimaging technique that allows to measure brain activity and connectivity. During my PhD in Neuroscience, I developed a deep interest in how changes in brain function correlate with clinical symptoms and cognitive functions in individuals with psychosis at different stages of the disorder. Understanding the neurobiology underlying symptoms and cognitive functioning in psychosis is crucial, as it could help facilitate earlier and personalized treatments, leading to better prognosis.

In 2024 I had the honor to win the SIRS Early Career Award and to attend the SIRS Congress. On that occasion, I was able to present the results of my latest study on the functional connectivity of the cerebellum, a region of the brain that helps coordinate a wide range of functions in the brain and the body. This study showed that altered connectivity of the cerebellum with rest of the brain was associated with more severe symptoms and greater cognitive impairments in individuals with psychosis. These results highlight the role of the cerebellum in the pathophysiology of psychosis and speak to the fact that therapeutic strategies targeting the cerebellum might represent promising interventions to reduce psychotic symptoms and to improve cognitive performance. The study has recently been published in Schizophrenia Research.

For a young researcher like me, attending the SIRS Congress gave me the opportunity to present my work to such a wide and highly specialized audience, to meet researchers from all around the world and to learn and discover the most updated notions in the field of schizophrenia research. I also had the chance to discuss my research with people with lived experience of psychosis, receiving invaluable feedback that substantially improved my work.

Currently, I am working as a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Psychological Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London. My research focuses on the brain changes associated with inflammation in psychosis, and how these correlate with symptoms and cognitive functioning. I am also involved in a multicentric study that aims to identify cognitive markers able to predict functioning in psychosis at the individual level.

Moving forward, I would like to establish my own research program dedicated to the study of brain abnormalities in individuals with psychosis and to the translation of these findings to clinical practice. I hope that my line of research will provide a clearer picture of the brain mechanisms underlying psychosis, ultimately helping the development of better diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies.

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