Ricardo Nitrini, Full Professor of Neurology

JAD profile

Affiliation(s): 

University of Sao Paulo Medical School

ORCID URL: 

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5721-1525

Areas of Interest: 

Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, mild cognitive impairment, rapidly progressive dementia, prion diseases, clinical diagnosis, epidemiology

Biography & Research: 

Ricardo Nitrini MD, FAAN, is Full Professor of Neurology of the Department of Neurology of the University of São Paulo (USP) Medical School, where he graduated in Medicine in 1971. His theses for Master of Sciences (MSc) and Doctor degrees (equivalent to PhD) were on the clinical and laboratory evolution of neurosyphilis. His post-doctoral thesis was on dementia with focus on the diagnosis of cognitive impairment in illiterates and low educated individuals. He was able to develop tests for diagnosis of cognitive impairment that were less biased by education. With these new diagnostic methods he performed, together with his students, one the first epidemiological studies in Latin American population on the prevalence and incidence of dementia. He is the founder and Director of two units dedicated to post-graduate education and research in cognitive impairment: the Cognitive and Behavioral Unit and the Reference Center for Cognitive Disorders, both at the USP. He also actively participated in the formation and is a member of board of directors of the Brain Bank of the Brazilian Aging Brain Study Group. He supervised more than 20 theses for MSc and PhD degrees, has more than 200 publications in Web of Sciences, and he is also author of 26 books and 132 chapters in books.