Federico Bermúdez-Rattoni studied medicine at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City and earned a Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles. After obtaining his Ph.D., he established his laboratory in the Department of Neuroscience of the Instituto de Fisiología Celular at UNAM in Mexico City. Since his student days, he has worked on the molecular mechanisms involved in memory formation and neural plasticity.

During his career, Dr. Bermúdez-Rattoni has written nearly 100 papers and 3 books about his specialty. He has been invited to present about 80 speeches at symposiums and magisterial conferences around the world and has organized several international symposiums and courses related to his specialty. His laboratory has hosted graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting scientists from many countries.

For his outstanding contributions to his field, he has been elected a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation of New York City and received the National University Prize and the Syntex Prize for medical research. He serves as chair of the Department of Neuroscience and is currently the vice president of the Mexican Society for Neurosciences and a visiting fellow of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine.