Dr. Ari Cuperfain is an associate scientist and staff geriatric psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), a consultant psychiatrist at EHN Bellwood Health Services, and assistant professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto (UofT). He is the lead of the Older Adult Addiction Psychiatry Collaborative Care Clinic also at CAMH.
He received his medical degree from UofT and went on to complete residency in general psychiatry and then geriatric psychiatry, both at UofT. He was also chief resident at CAMH during his residency training. Prior to medical school, he completed a MSc in Chemistry at UofT. Dr. Cuperfain has clinical and research interests in substance use disorders in older adults with concurrent psychiatric and neurocognitive disorders. He has received awards from the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP), the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and the Canadian Academy for Geriatric Psychiatry (CAGP).
Areas of Research:
Substance use disorders in older adults are understudied, despite their growing importance as the population ages. Dr. Cuperfain’s research examines how substance use, particularly alcohol use, affects cognition and brain health in later life. His work aims to understand the causes of alcohol-related cognitive impairment (ARCI) and improve its recognition and treatment.
His research explores patterns of memory errors that may help identify alcohol-related cognitive difficulties, changes in brain structure associated with heavy alcohol use, and how alcohol use relates to behavioural and psychological symptoms in people with dementia. He also uses non-invasive brain stimulation to investigate how alcohol leads to cognitive impairment, and whether neurostimulation could support cognitive recovery. Together, this work aims to improve care for older adults experiencing both substance use and cognitive difficulties.
Learn more about Dr. Cuperfain’s research into ARCI in this presentation.
Publications:
View Dr. Cuperfain’s publications on Google Scholar.