Paulo Lizano MD, PhD

Paul Lizano, MD, PhD graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in Biochemistry. He received an MD and a PhD from Rutgers University with a focus on Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine. He completed a psychiatry residency research track training at Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Program and a Clinical Neuroscience/Neuropsychiatry fellowship at the Berenson Allen Center for Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Dr. Lizano is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Division Chief of Translational Neuroscience and Director of a First Episode Psychosis Clinic at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He chose to study the neurobiology of psychotic disorders given the lack of clinically tractable diagnostic biomarkers, as well as an absence of disease modifying treatments. Thus, Dr. Lizano created a research program that integrates translational predictors of psychopathology and disease neurobiology in a clinically relevant manner. His research focuses on utilizing retinal imaging, neuroimaging, blood-based biomarker technology, and neuromodulation to better characterize and offer potential interventions in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. His work also involves in vivo and ex vivo techniques to examine inflammation-mediated disruption of the blood brain barrier in psychosis. Dr. Lizano has also extended his work to use non-invasive neuromodulation to target causal brain regions in the extrastriate visual cortex or superior temporal sulcus that are associated with visual hallucinations and overall hallucinations, respectively.