Our Faculty
Cristina Cusin, M.D.
Director of the Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Biography
Dr. Cristina Cusin is Director of Translational Studies at the Depression Clinical and Research Program (DCRP) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and an assistant professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the mechanism underlying the response to placebo in major depression, and from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to investigate the use of ketamine as adjunct of antidepressants in patients with depression and suicidal ideation.
She completed her medical degree and psychiatric training in Italy then graduated in 2010 from the Adult Psychiatry MGH/McLean Residency Program, after which she joined the DCRP as staff psychiatrist under the mentorship of Dr. Maurizio Fava. In 2015 she became the founder and Director of the Ketamine Clinic for Depression at MGH.
Dr. Cusin’s research interests are focused on the clinical features, novel treatments, and genetics of mood disorders, and the neurobiological basis of placebo effect. She is involved in numerous clinical trials investigating ketamine and new antidepressant treatments in patients with refractory depression. She has specific clinical expertise in the most severe forms of mood disorders and in applying somatic therapies, including electroconvulsive treatment, Vagal Nerve Stimulator and Deep Brain Stimulator. She has published more than 70 peer-reviewed articles and several book chapters, and co-edited The Massachusetts General Hospital Guide to Depression.