Psychosis and Personality Disorders (eBook)

Paola Rocca, MD, is Full Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Turin. She is the Chief of the Center for Treatment-Resistant Psychotic Disorders, and she set up the Center for Cognitive Rehabilitation at the Department of Neurosciences, Turin. She has been the Vice Director of Scientific Research and currently she is the Vice Director of Quality at the Department of Neuroscience, 'Rita Levi Montalcini', she is also a member of the Research Commission of the Medical School of the University of Turin, the Coordinator of the Neuroimaging Committee, and the responsible for the Neuroimaging Center at the University of Turin (NIT). She is a member of the steering committee of the Italian Network for Research on Psychoses (NIRP) and a councilor on the executive committee of the Italian Society of Psychopathology. She is the Coordinator of the schizophrenia research section at the Department of Mental Health, Turin. Her interests in clinical psychiatry research on schizophrenia include the study and classification of schizophrenia according to different patterns of symptoms/cognitive deficits; evaluation of depressive symptoms in schizophrenia using specific standardized scales; study of correlation between depressive symptoms and cognitive functions/functional outcome, subjective and objective quality of life and coping; study of delusion and cognitive pattern in acute and stable patients with schizophrenia, disorganized and paranoid type; social cognition: clinical, neuropsychological and neurobiological aspects; the impact of new and old antipsychotic drugs on cognitive functioning.  Her research in the field of biological psychiatry is mainly focused on the analysis (using fMRI techniques and high-resolution EEG) of brain activation of specific areas during particular cognitive tasks in patients with schizophrenia. Her research has led to more than 100 publications in international high impact factor journals as well as numerous book chapters.