Jorge Alvarado
MS2

Past Research Experience
Jorge’s first research experience was during his senior year at MIT when he served as a research assistant at the Cardiac MR division of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. There, he used time-course cardiac MR images to select a time frame throughout the cardiac cycle for maximal MR imaging in chronic right atrial fibrillation patients who had gone through pulmonary artery ablation surgery. This project also served as his senior thesis project for his electrical engineering degree. Following graduation, he joined the Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital as a research assistant. There he used traditional MR images and diffusion-MR images to find subtle changes in the structure and connectivity of brains of patients with schizophrenia and mild traumatic brain injury.

Current areas of research/interest
Jorge continues to be minorly involved with the Psychiatry Neuroimaging Lab in some ongoing long-term projects. He is also interested in neurology and cardiology research at UTSW, as both subspecialties are areas of future career interest. Specifically, he is interested in the electrophysiology of the two subspecialties and its relevance to implantable devices. In addition, he’s interested in research that is more clinically oriented to supplement his experience in laboratory research.

Current Professional Trajectory
Jorge plans to become a medical scientist who is deeply involved in academia. He hopes to find a balance between research in his field, practice, and teaching at a hospital and medical school. He hopes to be a mentor in a multidisciplinary research team as well as to medical students and young physicians.

“Personal Words of Wisdom”
Don’t sweat the small stuff.

Meetings and Abstracts
UTSW Student Research Forum, Dallas, TX, 2011: Stochastic Tractography Study of Inferior Frontal Gyrus Anatomical Connectivity in Schizophrenia.

Society of Biological Psychiatry 64th Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC, 2009: Study of Language Related White Matter Fiber Tract Projections in Schizophrenia Using Diffusion Stochastic Tractography.

Harvard Psychiatry Research Day, Boston, MA, 2008: Sobel Filter Segmentation of the Globus Pallidus in Schizophrenia.

Harvard Psychiatry Research Day, Boston, MA, 2007: Abnormalities in the Anterior Limb of the Internal Capsule in Schizophrenia using Diffusion Tensor Imaging.

Publications
Mulert C, Kirsch V, Whitford TJ, Alvarado J, Pelavin P, McCarley RW, Kubicki M, Salisbury DF, Shenton ME. World J Biol Psychiatry. 2011 May 30. [Epub ahead of print].

Choi H, Kubicki M, Whitford TJ, Alvarado JL, Terry DP, Niznikiewicz M, McCarley RW, Kwon JS, Shenton ME. Diffusion tensor imaging of anterior commissural fibers in patients with schizophrenia. Schizophr Res. 2011 May 9. [Epub ahead of print].

Kubicki M, Alvarado JL, Westin CF, Tate DF, Markant D, Terry DP, Whitford TJ, De Siebenthal J, Bouix S, McCarley RW, Kikinis R, Shenton ME. Stochastic Tractography Study on Inferior Frontal Gyrus Anatomical Connectivity in Schizophrenia. Neuroimage. 2011 Apr 15;55(4):1657-64.

Levitt JJ, Kubicki M, Nestor PG, Ersner-Hershfield H, Westin CF, Alvarado JL, Kikinis R, Jolesz FA, McCarley RW, Shenton ME. A diffusion tensor imaging study of the anterior limb of the internal capsule in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Res. 2010 Dec 30;184(3):143-50. Epub 2010 Nov 5.

Whitford TJ, Kubicki M, Schneiderman JS, O'Donnell LJ, King R, Alvarado JL, Khan U, Markant D, Nestor PG, Niznikiewicz M, McCarley RW, Westin CF, Shenton ME. Corpus callosum abnormalities and their association with psychotic symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Jul 1;68(1):70-7. Epub 2010 May 21.