Personality Disorders from a Neuroscience Perspective

NYPSI’s 1025th Scientific Program Meeting

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

8:00 pm

Presenter: M. Mercedes Perez-Rodriguez, MD, PhD

The study of personality disorders conceived as categorical entities has traditionally been in the province of psychoanalytic or behavioral models. However, there is an emerging area of study, spearheaded by the NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoCs) program, that aims to uncover the neurobiological underpinnings of the dimensions that make up mental disorders. These new directions in psychiatry neurobiological research converge with new dimensional conceptions of personality disorders, and with efforts to identify the neural basis for the traits underlying personality disorders.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by emotional dysregulation, which is linked to a neurobiological model of emotional undermodulation and deficient habituation; and by interpersonal impairments, which are linked to deficits in social cognition. Schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) is comprised of interpersonal and social cognitive abnormalities and cognitive/ perceptual impairments, and shares clinical, cognitive and neurobiological overlap with schizophrenia, as this presentation aims to show.

2 CME/CE credits offered.

$20 General Admission

$10  Student Admission (non-NYPSI)

Free RSVP for NYPSI members and students

Born and raised in Spain, Dr. M. Mercedes Perez-Rodriguez moved to the U.S. in 2008 to pursue an academic career in psychiatry research. Dr. Perez is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Assistant Training Director for Research in the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. She is the Medical Director of the Psychosis Research Integrating Science and Medicine (PRISM) Program.

Dr. Perez’s work, funded by the NIH, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD), and the VA MIRECC, aims to elucidate the biological underpinnings of psychosis spectrum and personality disorders and test novel treatments through cutting-edge clinical trials, with a focus on cognition and social cognition.  She has authored or co-authored over 100 publications, including more than 70 papers in in peer-reviewed journals and 15 book chapters, and has made more than 60 presentations at national and international meetings.

Dr. Perez is a Fellow Member of the American Psychiatric Association and an Associate Member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). She has served in several administrative leadership positions including the National Advisory Mental Health Council Workgroup on Tasks and Measures for RDoC (Research Domain Criteria) at the NIMH; the Innovations Working Group and the Biomarkers Working Group at the International Society for Central Nervous System Clinical Trials Methodology (ISCTM); and the Membership Task Force committee at The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). Dr. Perez is an elected member of the board of directors of the American Society of Hispanic Psychiatry.