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- Professor, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University;
- Researcher, Douglas Research Centre, Adolescent brain development and susceptibility to psychopathology;
- Associate Member, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University;
- Principal Investigator at the Ludmer Centre.
Cecilia Flores, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, and an Associate Member of the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University. Prof. Flores joined McGill in 2004, and has since established the Flores Lab.
The Flores lab aims to understand the neurobiology of psychiatric vulnerability in adolescence and to discover biomarkers of risk and resilience during this malleable age. The lab studies cellular and molecular processes taking place during adolescent brain maturation and how these events are modulated by experiences that are common during this age, such as social stress and exposure to drugs of abuse.
Prof. Flores applies multidisciplinary and translational approaches to identify key genes controlling the adolescent maturation of the prefrontal cortex in males and females. Using molecular, neuroanatomical, neurochemical, pharmacological, genetic, and behavioural tools, her team has demonstrated that a set of guidance cue genes and their microRNA regulators orchestrate the development of the prefrontal cortex in adolescence, determine differential vulnerability to develop psychopathology-like phenotypes in mice and are tightly associated with substance abuse, schizophrenia and major depression in humans.
- Visit Pubmed for a list of publications.
