Joshua Roffman, M.D., M.Msc.

Co-Director, Mass General Neuroscience

Co-Director, MGH Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging

Joshua Roffman MD, MMSc is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who focuses on biological underpinnings of severe mental illness (SMI). A graduate of Amherst College and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Dr. Roffman trained in adult psychiatry at MGH and McLean Hospital, and received specialized training in clinical/translational research at the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST). Dr. Roffman and his team directed seminal clinical trials of folic acid-based interventions for schizophrenia, work that has now evolved to focus on prevention of SMI. He currently directs the Brain Genomics Lab at MGH, which seeks to identify early-life protective factors against SMI risk through developmental cohort studies, multi-modal brain imaging, and genomics. Dr. Roffman co-directs Mass General Neuroscience, a hospital-wide initiative that fuels innovative treatment and prevention strategies through translational research. He also co-directs the MGH Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging, is a founding director of the Translational Neuroscience Training for Clinicians T32 fellowship, co-directs the Introduction to Psychopathology course for second-year medical students in HST, and serves as Editor in Chief of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry.

Read about Dr. Roffman's lab: http://roffmanlab.mgh.harvard.edu/

Publications

Roffman JL, Gollub RL, Calhoun VD, Wassink TH, Weiss AP, Ho BC, White T, Clark VP, Fries J, Andreasen NC, Goff DC, Manoach DS. MTHFR 677C>T genotype disrupts prefrontal function in schizophrenia through an interaction with COMT 158Val>Met. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105:17573-17578, 2008. PMCID: PMC2582272

​Roffman JL, Lamberti JS, Achtyes E, Macklin EA, Galendez GC, Raeke LH, Silverstein NJ, Smoller JW, Hill M, Goff DC. Randomized multi-center investigation of folate plus vitamin B12 supplementation in schizophrenia. JAMA Psychiatry 70:481-489, 2013. PMCID: PMC4394629

Roffman JL, Tanner AS, Eryilmaz H, Rodriguez-Thompson A, Silverstein NJ, Ho NF, Nitenson AZ, Chonde DB, Greve DN, Abi-Dargham A, Buckner RL, Manoach DS, Rosen BR, Hooker JM, Catana C. Dopamine D1 signaling organizes network dynamics underlying working memory. Science Advances, 2: e1501672, 2016. PMCID: PMC4928887

Roffman JL, Petruzzi LJ, Brown HE, Eryilmaz H, Ho NF, Giegold M, Silverstein NJ, Bottiglieri T, Manoach DS, Smoller JW, Henderson DC, Goff DC. PMCID in progress. Biochemical, physiological, and clinical effects of l-methylfolate in schizophrenia: a randomized controlled trial. Mol Psychiatry, 23:316-322, 2018. PMCID: PMC5599314

Eryilmaz H, Dowling KF, Huntington FC, Rodriguez-Thompson A, Soare TW, Beard LM, Lee H, Blossom JC, Gollub RL, Susser E, Gur RC, Calkins ME, Gur RE, Satterthwaite TD, Roffman JL. Association of prenatal exposure to population-wide folic acid fortification with altered cerebral cortex maturation in youths. JAMA Psychiatry,75:918-28, 2018. PMCID: PMC6142921

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