Dr. Ronald Garcia is an Instructor at the Department of Psychiatry and an Assistant in Neuroscience at the Department of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. His main research interests include the study of neural mechanisms involved in cardiac autonomic activity and blood pressure regulation. 

Dr. Garcia received a M.D. degree from Universidad Industrial de Santander, Colombia, and a Ph.D. degree in neuroscience from Universidade de Brasilia, Brazil. Before joining Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Garcia was Research Director at the Cardiovascular Foundation of Colombia (2010-2012) and conducted research and published extensively on cardiac autonomic dysregulation and vascular dysfunction in patients with hypertension-related conditions, mood disorders and cardio- and cerebro-vascular diseases. Since 2012, Dr. Garcia is based in the US, where he has been involved in the development of functional neuroimaging studies aimed to identify central mechanisms of cardiac and vascular regulation. 

In addition, in collaboration with Dr. Jill Goldstein at the Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory of Sex Differences in the Brain and Dr. Vitaly Napadow at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Dr. Garcia has participated in the implementation of a novel, non-invasive technique for respiratory-gated transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation. He is currently developing studies aimed to evaluate the effects of this technology on mood and cardiac regulation on major depression and hypertension. If proven successful, this would provide evidence for the usefulness of this modality for the treatment of the comorbidity between major depression and cardiovascular disease. 

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