María Rosa Ayesa Arriola

Rosa Ayesa is Senior Researcher at the Valdecilla Research Institute (IDIVAL). She earned her degree in Psychology in 2004 and her master's degree in Neuropsychology in 2006 from National University of Distance Education (UNED), and received her Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of Cantabria (UC). Among its external stays, merits to mention those carried out at the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center at Hartford, Yale University USA (2011); Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London UK (2013); Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, Utrecht University Netherlands (2015 and 2016); and Polytechnic University, Hong Kong (2017).


Since 2007 she develops her career at the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, focused on the study of neurocognitive functions and functional outcome in the first episode of psychosis patients. She is a member of the Research Network of Mental Health (CIBERSAM) since 2009 and co-principal investigator since 2016. In 2018 she won the Miguel Servet Type I contract funded by the ISCIII with additional assistance for the development of a health research project. In 2022 she was granted by State Research Agency, State　Program to Develop, Attract and Retain Talent, to support her consolidation of a career in research.


Since 2019 she leads the Mental Disorders Research IDIVAL Group. She has been Principal Investigator of 4 consecutive ISCIII funded projects: 10PAFIP neurocognition: Long-term longitudinal study (10 years) of cognitive functioning in patients with psychosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorders in 2014; PAFIP-FAMILIES: study of neuropsychological functioning and associated genetic variants in first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders in 2017; Multicenter study: Adaptation and validation of the cognitive battery Brief Assessment of Cognition App (BAC App) and the Virtual Reality Assessment of Functional Capacity Tool (VRFCAT) for use in Spain in 2020; Offspring of parents with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: continuation of PAFIP-FAMILIES project and incorporation of discourse as a biomarker for psychosis in 2023. In addition, she has carried out two studies on a Cohort of pregnancies COVID-19 and newborns: study focused on biological and psychological aspects related to neurodevelopment (2020-2023); Prevention and early detection of neurodevelopmental disorders: development of a tool to identify language and movement disorders using artificial intelligence and deep learning (2023-2025).


Her merits in research and teaching have allowed her to obtain I3 Accreditation in 2022. Her academic trajectory has been developed as associate professor in the Degree of Psychology at the UNED (Bergara 2008 to 2015; Santander 2019-) and in the Degree of Physiotherapy at the Gimbernat-UC (2012-). She has been the director of 19 Master Thesis related to her research lines within the Master of Initiation to Mental Health Research (CIBERSAM-UC) and 2 Ph.D. Theses. She is currently supervising 7 Ph.D. students. She has published several book chapters and 157 scientific articles in indexed journals that have been cited 4.192 times, with an H index of 36 (Google Scholar).