Rishikesh V. Behere., MBBS, MD [Psychiatry]

Assistant Professor
Department of Psychiatry
Kasturba Medical Colloge
Manipal- 576104
Email: [email protected]

Personal Profile
    I am a clinician with a keen research interest. My clinical experience in dealing with people with debilitating disorders such as schizophrenia serves as a constant reminder to me of how little we understand the complexities of the human brain and its functioning. It makes me believe that cognitive neuroscience is the ‘last frontier’ of scientific conquest. This is an important motivating factor in my work on social cognition deficits in schizophrenia.

In addition to my clinical responsibilities and research interests, I am an avid musician. I find solace in playing the musical keyboard and recording my compositions in a small home recording studio set up. You may listen to some of my work here: You Tube


Research Interest & Activities:
    My research interests includes understanding social cognition deficits especially Facial Emotion Recognition Deficits in Schizophrenia and its relation to various aspects of psychopathology, socio occupational functioning and their neurobiological correlates.

• I have developed a novel tool to assess emotion recognition deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders, called as TRENDS(Tool for Recognition of Emotions in Neuropsychiatric DisorderS). This is a novel culturally sensitive and ecologically valid tool for assessing emotion recognition deficits in Indian population. This tool can play a pivotal role in enhancing our understanding of social cognition deficits in Indian patients from our cultural perspective. The development and validation of this tool won the best PG paper presentation award at the annual conference of Indian psychiatric society south zone 2007. The tool is subsequently been used by me as well as other individuals in studies on understanding social cognition deficits in various neuropsychiatric disorders. 
• I have been actively involved in studies to understand facial emotion recognition deficits; especially threat perception in antipsychotic naïve schizophrenia and its relation to psychopathology, antipsychotic treatments and neuroimaging findings. We reported a first time study that demonstrated facial emotion recognition deficits in a large sample of antipsychotic naïve schizophrenia patients.
• In Studies on treatment implications of facial emotion recognition deficits; Risperidone and yoga therapy were independently demonstrated to have beneficial effects in improving these deficits.
• I am involved in study to understand facial emotion recognition deficits and its relation to oxytocin levels and effect of yoga intervention in remitted schizophrenia patients.
• I have been actively involved inDBT funded imaging genomics studies (IMAGENE study)and ICMR funded Study on cerebellar abnormalities in antipsychotic naïve schizophrenia (SCAANS) under the mentorship of Dr BN Gangadhar, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS and DrGanesanVenkatasubramanian Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS.
• I have knowledge of morphometric softwares such as MRIcro, MIPAV, Statistical Parametric Mapping(SPM) 5, Matlab&Eprime 2.0 Professional software
• Working knowledge of Voxel based morphometric & functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques and analysis using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) 5.
• I have training in manual brain morphometric techniques of areas such as dorslolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus. I have published papers on gray matter volume deficits in orbitofrontal cortex, inferior parietal lobule and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia.
• I have been regularly associated with journals Schizophrenia Research, Asian Journal of Psychiatry, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, and International Journal of Yoga as a reviewer.
• I have been actively involved in research in the area of metabolic abnormalities associated with antipsychotic treatment in psychiatric disorders. Published studies have demonstrated HDL abnormalities associated with risperidone treatment and association between HDL levels and psychopathology. I have also been involved in proposing novel hypothesis based on a metabolic threshold for atypical antipsychotics and baseline prolactin levels as a marker for clinical improvement with antipsychotics.
• I have been involved in reporting of novel clinical observations such as development of hyponatremia on treatment with aripirprazole, clinical seizures associated with olanzapine treatment, delirious mania and response to ECT, physical deformity as sequela of chronic catatonia.

Future Research
    My research work is primarily based on understanding facial emotion recognition deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders. I would like to continue my work in this exciting and clinically important field.

• I am currently pursuing a DST funded research project which aims at understanding diagnostic utility, endophenotypic validity and clinical correlates of facial emotion recognition deficits in schizophrenia versus bipolar disorder.

• My future research would aim to develop treatment modules for improving facial emotion recognition deficits and improving socio-occupational functioning in patients with chronic psychiatric disorders. I would also like to study the role of oxytocin in mediating social cognition deficits in schizophrenia.

Curriculum Vitae


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