Associate Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine
Board Certified Psychiatrist (Brazilian Psychiatry Association)
e-mail: lfontenelle@medicina.ufrj.br

Dr. Fontenelle is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Psychiatry of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IPUB/UFRJ), where he directs the Anxiety, Obsessive, and Compulsive Research Program. Since 2011, Dr. Fontenelle also has an appointment as a Senior Researcher at D’Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR), a private research institution that collaborates closely with his group at UFRJ. In 2019, Dr. Fontenelle became a full time Professor at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, in Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, while keeping an Adjunct position within the Department of Psychiatry of the School of Clinical Sciences in the same institution.

His research has used a dimensional approach to transform our understanding of syndromes associated with obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (OCRDs), thus changing how these conditions are assessed, diagnosed, and ultimately treated. The bulk of his research on OCRDs phenotypes has modified classification and diagnostic practices, increased population awareness and influenced the discipline of psychiatry on an international level. Dr. Fontenelle is among the four most productive researchers in the world in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) [2009-2018], with 248 publications, and total of 6,324 citations. Together with international colleagues, he has obtained the biggest donation for research on mental health in the history of Australia (5,250,000 $AUD), which allowed the establishment of Brainpark, a unique research clinic dedicated to research on addictions and OCD.

As a key member of a small panel of 12 experts commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Fontenelle co-drafted the ICD-11 diagnostic criteria for OCRDs, being directly responsible for defining the diagnostic guidelines of hoarding disorder, a condition that wasn’t recognised as a psychiatric disorder until the ICD-11. As a result of this work, he had a direct impact on the health of millions of individuals across the globe (given the estimated prevalence of hoarding disorder to be up to 6% of the adult population). These individuals may now be diagnosed and treated for this and other forms psychopathology previously not formally recognised in the world’s major diagnostic manual.

Dr. Fontenelle obtained a medical degree at Federal Fluminense University (UFF). Soon after becoming a psychiatry registrar in 1996, he started his research activities within the IPUB/UFRJ, the most traditional academic school dedicated to mental health research in Brazil. There, he created, in 1998, the only clinic and research program dedicated to OCD in Rio de Janeiro. He also obtained my mastership (1998-2000) and doctorate degrees (2000-2003) in psychiatry at the same institution and remained a consultant psychiatrist there from 2002 to 2006, before becoming a faculty member.

Publications:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gl1ItuIAAAAJ&hl=en