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Biographical Sketch 2009

W. Curt LaFrance, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., is the Director of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurology at Rhode Island Hospital (RIH) and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology (Research) in the Departments of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and of Clinical Neurosciences at Brown Medical School. He is the neuropsychiatrist for the RIH Comprehensive Epilepsy Program, and a faculty member of the Brown Institute for Brain Science. He serves as the Associate Director of the combined neurology/psychiatry residency at Brown Medical School.

Dr. LaFrance received a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from Wake Forest University and his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia. He completed the combined residency in neurology and psychiatry at Brown Medical School, and he is boarded in both neurology and in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. After residency, he completed a Clinical Research Fellowship in Combined Treatments at Brown University with an institutional NIH T-32 national research service award. He obtained his master of public health from Brown University in 2007.

Dr. LaFrance received a 5 year K23 award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) to conduct clinical trials for patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (NES). In 2003, he was awarded the Career Development Award by the American Neuropsychiatric Association (ANPA). His biography has been included in Marquis Who's Who of Emerging Leaders and Who's Who in the World. In 2008, he was appointed to the Governor's Permanent Advisory Commission on Traumatic Brain Injury. His academic society memberships include American Academy of Neurology, American Neuropsychiatric Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Epilepsy Society, and Christian Medical and Dental Associations.

Dr. LaFrance serves on the Committee on Research for the ANPA, the Editorial Boards for Epilepsy & Behavior and Epilepsia, the Review Board of the Journal of Pediatric Neurology, and he is an invited reviewer for Neurology, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Behaviour Research and Therapy, Clinical Neurology & Neurosurgery, Epilepsy Research, and the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry. He chaired the 2005 NINDS/NIMH/AES sponsored NES treatment workshop. This international workshop brought neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists and allied health members together to set the direction for future NES research. He is a steward on the NINDS Benchmarks for Epilepsy Research Committee, and he serves on the Neuropsychiatry Commission of the International League Against Epilepsy. He is an Advisor for the DSM-V Somatoform Disorders Work Group. He is co-chair of the American Epilepsy Society's NES Task Force. He served on the Neuroethics interdisciplinary panel for the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity and as a reviewer for the NINDS, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Institute for Mental Health Research, and on The Wellcome Trust's Neuroscience and Mental Health Funding Committee.

His research interests include neuropsychiatric aspects of epilepsy and somatoform disorders. He has written on and given invited lectures regionally, nationally and internationally on topics in neuropsychiatry, including epilepsy co-morbidities, somatoform disorders, NES, TBI, integrative medicine, causation and consciousness. He has published in Neurology, Epilepsia, Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, Current Opinion in Neurology, Seminars in Neurology, International Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, Current Psychiatry and Epilepsy & Behavior. He is co-editor of the 3rd edition of Nonepileptic Seizures.

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