Dr. Christin Schifani is a project scientist with the Campbell Family Health Research Institute at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).
Dr. Schifani received her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Heidelberg (Germany). After completing her degree, she moved to Toronto where her first postdoctoral fellowship at the CAMH PET Centre focused on identifying disease pathways of psychosis onset using state-of-the-art positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. As a NARSAD Young Investigator Awardee, she completed her second postdoctoral fellowship at CAMH’s Kimel Family Translational Imaging-Genetics Lab using advanced MRI methodology to study neural correlates of rTMS to improve functioning in schizophrenia before being appointed as a project scientist in the Brain Health Imaging Centre. She received several early career honours (e.g., from the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) and Society of Biological Psychiatry (SOBP)) for her work studying biomarkers of schizophrenia.
Areas of Research
Dr. Schifani’s research interest is to use multimodal neuroimaging, including advanced MRI and PET imaging, combined with behavioural/clinical measures and multivariate statistical approaches to understand what drives neurodevelopmental diseases such as schizophrenia/psychosis and autism spectrum disorder. Her goal is to identify modifiable brain biomarkers useful for the development of novel, targeted interventions. Another of her major interests is to integrate multimodal neuroimaging into clinical trials to identify the neurobiological mechanisms of the efficacy of interventions (e.g., brain stimulation, cognitive behavioral therapy etc.) to improve patients’ long-term outcomes. A current focus of her work is to characterize novel MRI and PET metrics of brain microstructure with strong potential for the development of preventive medications. She is also interested in studying brain alterations across diagnostic groups/along disease spectra to characterize alterations in brain-behavior interaction related to psychiatric disease in a more individual manner, crucial to move the field of individualized medicine forward.
Publications
View Dr. Schifani’s publications on Google Scholar, Scopus, or ResearchGate.