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Frederick Hitti, M.D., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Neurological Surgery and Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Clinically, he specializes in epilepsy and movement disorders, including Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, and dystonia.

Dr. Hitti earned his medical degree and a doctoral degree in neurobiology and behavior at Columbia University in New York. He completed a residency in neurosurgery and a fellowship in functional neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He also completed postdoctoral research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

He joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2022 and is a functional neurosurgeon focused on the development of treatments for neurologic and psychiatric disorders. He is particularly interested in employing gene therapy to ameliorate disease. He has used electrophysiology, mouse transgenesis, viral transduction, optogenetics, chemogenetics, stereotactic surgery, and behavioral assays to probe the circuitry of the mammalian brain. His research efforts are focused on developing novel therapies for treatment resistant depression.