Employee Directory

Edward Modestino Senior Lecturer
Psychology

Edward Justin Modestino, Ph.D., M.S. 
Senior Lecturer of Psychology and Codirector of EEG Lab in the Department of Psychology 
Education: Harvard 1997; PENN 1999, 2001; FAU 2009; UMB 2021 

Postdoctoral research fellowships in neuroimaging: Psychiatry at UVA (2010-2012), Neurology at BU (2013-2015) 

Dr. Modestino is a Neuroscientist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences from FAU in 2009. [This was an interdisciplinary Neuroscience program and member of the Association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs. This Ph.D. program has now transitioned into a traditional Neuroscience dept. at FAU.]  Subsequently, Dr. Modestino graduated from UMass Boston with an M.S. in Mental Health Counseling in 2021. Currently, Dr. Modestino works at a practice in Stoughton, MA, as a clinician/therapist.    

Since joining the Psychology faculty in 2016, Dr. Modestino has taught the following courses: Introduction to Psychology, Child Development, Motivation, Research Methods in Psychology (formerly Experimental Psychology; includes a lab component), Family Life (formerly Dysfunctional Families), Psychology of Violence and Terror, Substance Abuse Counseling, Brain & Behavior, Health Psychology, Drugs & Behavior, Counseling Theory, and Issues in Aging. 

Dr. Modestino has worked in EEG research since 1991, when he trained as a research intern in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School to conduct and record EEG and to perform structured clinical interviews for the DSM (SCID). When Dr. Modestino came to Curry in 2016, he trained with Dr. Steinberg in the EEG Lab. Dr. Steinberg has since retired, and Dr. Modestino now codirects the EEG Lab and directs his own lab, the Brain & Behavior Laboratory. His current research has three branches: (1) Combining multiple neuroimaging techniques (structural, functional, etc.) to study Parkinson’s disease, (2) the connection between ADHD and narcolepsy/hypersomnia with reward deficiency syndrome (RDS), and (3) empathy and rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD) in ADHD.  

In his personal life, Dr. Modestino’s wife of many decades, Danielle Kradin, graduated from Curry in 2023 with a degree in Psychology (not taking any of his courses and without his assistance). She is enrolled in the M.B.A. program at Curry and has been admitted to Mental Health Counseling master’s degree programs. In his spare time, Dr. Modestino is an amateur genealogist who enjoys traveling, visiting museums (archaeology) and historic locations, and spooky folklore tours. In his earlier life, Dr. Modestino was classically trained as a vocalist (singer) and took ukulele and guitar lessons. Dr. Modestino and his wife are cat parents as well.

Dr. Modestino’s Brain & Behavior Laboratory website:   

https://brainandbehavior.wixsite.com/bandblab

Representative publications:  

Modestino, E. J., Blum, K., Dennen, C. A., Downs, B. W., Bagchi, D., Llanos-Gomez, L., Elman, I., Baron, D., Thanos, P. K., Badgaiyan, R. D., Braverman, E. R., Gupta, A., Gold, M. S., & Bowirrat, A. (2022). Theorizing the role of dopaminergic polymorphic risk alleles with intermittent explosive disorder (IED), violent/aggressive behavior and addiction: Justification of genetic addiction risk severity (GARS) testing. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 12(12), 1946. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm12121946 

Steinberg, B., Carey, E., Modestino, E.J., Lubar, J., Thanos, P.K, Baron, D., & Blum, K., (2019) Pro-dopamine regulation with KB220Z improves working memory in an adult with ADHD—A case report and replication. Open Journal of Clinical & Medical Case Reports. 5(2):1512. http://jclinmedcasereports.com/articles/OJCMCR-1512.pdf 

Modestino, E.J., Reinhofer, A., Blum, K., Amenechi, C. & O’Toole, P. (2018). Hoehn and Yahr staging of Parkinson’s disease in relation to neuropsychological measures. Frontiers in Bioscience, 23(7), 1370–1379. https://doi.org/10.2741/4649 

Modestino, E. J., Amenechi, C., Reinhofer, A., & O’Toole, P. (2016). Side‐of‐onset of Parkinson’s disease in relation to neuropsychological measures. Brain and Behavior, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.590 

Modestino, E.J., O’Toole, P., & Reinhofer, A. (2016). Experiential and doctrinal religious knowledge categorization in Parkinson’s disease: Behavioral and brain correlates. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00113 

Modestino, E. J. (2016). Neurophenomenology of an altered state of consciousness: An fMRI case study. EXPLORE: The Journal of Science & Healing, 12(2), 128–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.explore.2015.12.004 

Modestino, E. J., Blum, K., Oscar-Berman, M., Gold, M. S., Duane, D. D., Sultan, S. G. S., & Auerbach, S. H. (2015). Reward deficiency syndrome: Attentional/arousal subtypes, limitations of current diagnostic nosology, and future research. Journal of Reward Deficiency Syndrome, 01(01). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4545661/pdf/nihms-692690.pdf

Modestino, E.J., & Winchester, J. (2013). A retrospective survey of childhood ADHD symptomatology among Adult Narcoleptics. Journal of Attention Disorders, 17(7), 574–582. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054713480033 

Dr. Modestino’s Scientific Journal Appointments: 

Associate Editor for the Journal of Addiction Science  

Editorial Board Member for Current Psychopharmacology  

Editorial Board of the Journal of Personalized Medicine  

Editorial Board Member of INNOSC Theragnostics and Pharmacological Sciences (ITPS) 

Here are links to Dr. Modestino’s research: 

Doctoral Dissertation: “The Neural Correlates of Endogenously Cued Covert Visuospatial Attentional Shifting in the Cue-Target Interval: An Electroencephalographic Study.” 

 https://fau.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fau%3A4269 

Academia.edu: https://curry.academia.edu/EdwardJustinModestinoPhD 

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Modestino 

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=6508148415&fbclid=IwAR1e4P7MIbRrD6zIOAI8XSa1f2NvNPyOnmvBPX0eaTqlDH87yYpNhos7B8Y 

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7611-5144?lang=en&fbclid=IwAR3BYoWM545kLlWkTlStW1G88KWvUnjmmIvRSCPGx96MiLNcHzc_g3RO0ak 

Loop: https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/110538/overview?fbclid=IwAR2mUeRbRK9pmd1xA5wWW6_N6n6DUBEC8ceYw3PtsML36sKUsFiYLJp346k 

Sciprofiles: https://sciprofiles.com/profile/2217032?fbclid=IwAR2BmxICOQh3SCfmTnyrh_8EMKqNFThGHCXFMw2ut1-mmj46llDVt-g0mzQ 

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bzbSJFAAAAAJ&hl=en&fbclid=IwAR0T-ihvM8-KbQoyzaBAFOtMh6n547_Wv0TPmP84uOYfmUBcDaqyxwbiW_U