SALVADOR GUINJOAN

The Guinjoan Laboratory

Our Research Approach

Dr. Guinjoan has recently been incorporated to LIBR, and is working on the definition of neurobiological signatures of transdiagnostic clinical manifestations (especially rumination, a well-known adverse prognostic factor in a variety of psychiatric conditions), with the purpose of attaining a better definition of both 1) disease processes which transcend current psychiatric diagnostic categories, and 2) prognosis and prediction of response to treatment, especially in the mood and anxiety disorders. To this end, he is studying a large sample of healthy participants and patients with nonpsychotic disorders (T1000). He is also helping to define experiments that characterize -and modulate- structural and functional brain circuits in such disorders, with the ultimate goal of providing the treating clinician with diagnostic and prognostic tools based upon quantifiable neurobiological variables.

CONTACT DR. GUINJOAN

Scientific Background

Dr. Guinjoan obtained M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine in 1992 and 1997 respectively. He completed his residency training in psychiatry at The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital/University of Maryland program in 1999, where he was also a chief resident, and obtained his board certification in 2000. He returned to Buenos Aires in 1999 and developed a career in clinical and academic psychiatry at the University of Buenos Aires and at the Fleni Foundation institute, where he was Chief of Psychiatry and interim Chief of Cognitive Neurology. He is an international fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a member of the American College of Psychiatrists. His initial scientific work contributed to characterize autonomic nervous system dysfunction as a potential mechanism explaining the link between depression and adverse prognosis in heart disease. More recently his lab contributed to the understanding of the neurobiological underpinnings and functional impact of social cognitive alterations in schizophrenia. He is part of the ANDES consortium, a multinational effort to understand the impact of poverty, violence, and social inequality on cognition and brain biology in patients with psychosis. He collaborated with colleagues at the University of Barcelona on the definitions of functional imaging and autonomic signatures of stress regulation in patients with depression as compared to those with emotional dysregulation due to borderline personality disorder. His last main line of work has been the definition of very early, noninvasive markers of Alzheimer’s disease in middle-aged individuals with and without a family history of the disease. To this end, his lab used structural and functional MRI, along with PET studies to define brain metabolism and in vivo Beta-Amyloid deposit.