Simon Cervenka

I am professor of Psychiatry at Uppsala University, and senior consultant at the psychiatry clinic, Uppsala Akademiska Hospital. I combine research, teaching and clinical work.

MD, Uppsala University 1999

Licence to Practice Medicine 2002

PhD, Karolinska Institutet 2008

Specialist in Psychiatry 2009

Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Karolinska Institutet 2016

My research focuses on the biological processes behind the symptoms of psychiatric disorders, with particular focus on psychosis and schizophrenia. The long-term goal of my work is to develop new diagnostic tools and treatment approaches.

Psychotic disorders affect individuals at a young age, causing great suffering and often severe loss of function. With current treatment, only a minority of patients recover. There is an urgent need for new treatment approaches that not only dampen symptoms, but can change the disease course. Moreover, given the heterogenous nature of psychiatric conditions we need tools for treatment stratification, i.e. finding the right treatment for the right patient, at the right time. Addressing these unmet medical needs requires an improved understanding of the underlying disease mechanisms.

A key methodological platform in my research is positron emission tomography (PET), which enables quantification of biochemical markers in brain in vivo. I am also part of collaborative projects using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and biomarkers in blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The biological measures are correlated with detailed clinical phenotyping, including assessment of different aspects of cognitive function. Clinical studies are performed in close collaboration with health care partners.

Certain research questions require large samples to allow for robust inferences. I am actively engaged in projects pooling PET data across research centers, and have contributed to large-scale collaborations on different MR imaging modalities. An important aim going forward is to transition from analyses based on diagnostic status to identify mechanistically informative markers for clinical use.

Don’t hesitate to contact me if you are interested in joining this work!