John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience and Professor of Psychiatry, and in the Child Study Center and of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Director, Mood Disorders Research Program
Research Interests
Suicide
Depression
Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Adolescent Psychiatry
Bipolar Disorder
Mood Disorders
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Psychiatry
Neuropsychiatry
Dr. Hilary Patricia Blumberg is the John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience, Professor of Psychiatry, Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and in the Child Center, and Director of the Mood Disorders Research Program, at the Yale School of Medicine. She graduated summa cum laude in neuroscience from Harvard University and completed her medical degree, psychiatry training and specialty training in brain scanning research at Cornell University Medical College. Dr. Blumberg’s research is devoted to understanding the brain circuitry differences that underlie mood disorders across the lifespan, with a focus on bipolar disorder and on suicide prevention. She directs the Mood Disorders Research Program at Yale that brings together a multi-disciplinary group of scientists to study the genetic, developmental and environmental factors that cause mood disorders to develop...
Mark Loughridge and Michele Williams Professor of Neurology and Professor of Neuroscience and of Neurosurgery; Director, Yale Clinical Neuroscience Imaging Center (CNIC)
Research Interests
Neurology
Neurobiology
Neuroimaging
Neurosurgery
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Behavioral Research
Attention
Electrophysiology
Consciousness
Consciousness Disorders
Epilepsy
Dr. Blumenfeld's clinical and research work focuses on epilepsy, cognition and brain imaging. He directs Yale's Clinical Neuroscience Imaging Center (CNIC), a new multi-disciplinary core facility for innovative study and treatment of brain disorders. Teaching activities include a textbook titled Neuroanatomy Through Clinical Cases, Sinauer Assoc., Publ. 2002, 2010, 2020.
Associate Professor of Neuroscience and of Cellular and Molecular Physiology
Research Interests
Cranial Nerves
Cardiovascular System
Ganglia, Sensory
Heart
Neural Pathways
Optogenetics
Peripheral Nervous System
Physiology
Vagus Nerve
Rui Chang received his B.S. in Biological Sciences and Biotechnology from Tsinghua University, China in 2005. He then studied sensory transduction with Emily Liman and earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Southern California in 2011. He completed his postdoctoral training with Stephen Liberles at Harvard Medical School, where he investigated how body sensory cues are monitored by the brain through the vagus nerve, and how these internal signals regulate whole body physiology. He joined both the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University School of Medicine in January 2018.The Chang lab uses state-of-the-art molecular, genetic, and imaging approaches including single-cell gene expression profiling, virus-based anatomical mapping, in vivo imaging, optogenetics, and chemogenetics to reveal the...
Associate Professor Tenure; Associate Professor, Neuroscience; Member, Kavli Institute for Neuroscience
Research Interests
Neural Networks, Computer
Neural Pathways
Neurophysiology
Prefrontal Cortex
Amygdala
Social Behavior
Social Cognition
Theory of Mind
Steve Chang is an Associate Professor of Psychology and of Neuroscience at Yale University. He is also a member of the Wu Tsai Institute and the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience at Yale. He is the co-Director of Undergraduate Studies of Yale's Neuroscience (NSCI) major. His research aims to understand the neural circuit mechanisms of social cognition and social decision-making. Major research approaches include using naturalistic social interaction paradigms combined with state-of-the-art behavioral and neural technologies. The ultimate goal of the research program is to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying social cognition and to learn how these processes may be disrupted in psychiatric conditions with social deficits.
Dr. Youngsun T. Cho is an Assistant Professor in the Child Study Center and Department of Psychiatry at Yale University. She is a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist. She holds an MD/PhD degree from the University of Rochester, and completed dissertation work on amygdala neuroanatomy and reward processing using fMRI. She completed psychiatry residency in the Neuroscience Research Training Program (NRTP) at Yale, and a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center. Her current research focuses on the development of cognitive and motivational brain circuits in adolescents with depression and adolescents with schizophrenia using fMRI, and pharmacologic neuroimaging to identify mechanisms of potential treatments. Her work is funded by the NIMH, and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.
Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and Professor of Neurosurgery; Co-Director MRI Research Center, Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Research Interests
Radiology
Neuroimaging
Neurosurgery
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Diagnostic Imaging
Anatomy
Dr. Constable received his PhD in Medical Physics from the University of Toronto. He came to Yale as a postdoctoral fellow and has been here since. In addition to being the director of MRI in the Yale Magnetic Resonance Research Center, he runs two parallel labs. One lab is a neuroscience lab focused on mapping the functional organization of the brain through functional MRI measurements and understanding the relationship between this functional organization and behavior. Such developments are leading to new approaches to functionally phenotype individuals with applications in subtyping in brain disorders and disease. Dr. Constable's other lab is focused on the development of novel MRI devices with projects around low field MRI's that can be placed in doctor's offices, with the potential to make MRI much more accessible than it is in it's current form.
Dr. Philip Robert Corlett trained in Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychiatry with Professors Trevor Robbins and Paul Fletcher at the University of Cambridge. He won a Wellcome Trust Prize Studentship and completed his PhD on the brain bases of delusion formation in the Brain Mapping Unit, Department of Psychiatry. After a short postdoc, he was awarded the University of Cambridge Parke- Davis Exchange Fellowship in Biomedical Sciences which brought him to the Yale University Department of Psychiatry to explore the maintenance of delusions with Professors Jane Taylor and John Krystal. He was named a Rising Star and Future Opinion Leader by Pharmaceutical Marketing Magazine and joined the Yale faculty in 2011 where he will continue to explore the cognitive and biological mechanisms of delusional beliefs as well as predictive learning, habit formation and...
Dr. Cortes-Briones is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University, Technical Director of MEG Imaging for Neuropsychiatric Disorders (MIND) Center at the West Haven VA Healthcare System, and a member of the Schizophrenia Neuropharmacology Research Group at Yale (SNRGY) as well as the Yale Center for the Science of Cannabis and Cannabinoids (YC-SCAN2). His primary research interests include understanding the changes in brain dynamics underlying the acute effects of psychoactive substances such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and ketamine, as well as auditory verbal hallucinations in individuals with schizophrenia. His current work focuses on applying machine learning algorithms to transcribe inner speech and auditory verbal hallucinations from their electrophysiological correlates, reconstructing fetal electroencephalographic (EEG) data from...
Professor of Psychiatry and of Neuroscience and of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Co-Director of the T32 Translational Alcohol Research Program, Psychiatry and Public Health
Research Interests
Psychiatry and Psychology
Radiology
Diseases
Brain
Chemicals and Drugs
Alcohol Drinking
alpha7 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor
Positron-Emission Tomography
Neurobiology
Neuroimaging
Nicotine
Opioid-Related Disorders
Dr. Cosgrove uses neuroreceptor imaging techniques such as PET to gain insights into the brains of people with substance use and other stress-related disorders. Trained as a clinical psychologist who worked with individuals managing alcohol and drug use disorders, Dr. Cosgrove transitioned to conducting research in order to inform the treatment of substance use disorders. Her laboratory develops and applies innovative brain imaging paradigms to track changes in critical neurochemicals over time, to identify treatment targets for psychiatric disorders, and to examine individual and sex and gender differences.
Professor of Psychiatry; Director, Molecular Imaging Program, NCPTSD, VA; Director, Mood, Anxiety, and Cognitive Sciences Division
Research Interests
Psychiatry
Radiology
Tobacco
Molecular Imaging
Chemicals and Drugs
Mood Disorders
Irina Esterlis is a clinical neuropsychologist and neuroreceptor imager with extensive training in the application of SPECT and PET to the study of mood, trauma, suicide, and comorbid disorders. Dr. Esterlis has developed two novel paradigms to interrogate both the acetylcholine and glutamatergic systems in vivo in human. Her lab was also the first to show ketamine-induced changes in human volunteers in vivo. She has received awards from Society of Nuclear Medicine, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Society for Biological Psychiatry, and American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Esterlis' current work includes the study of the metabotropic glutamatergic receptor involvement in bipolar depression and suicide, and synaptic alterations associated with depression, aging, and suicidality. The lab has expanded to add in vivo preclinical work to elucidate...
Dr. Fineberg holds an MD PhD from the University of Iowa, where she studied the molecular mechanisms that control early fate decisions for neural stem cells in mouse brain. She initially became interested in science as an undergraduate student at Oberlin College in physiology classes, where mechanism came alive in narratives about the evolutionary and individual history of the organism. She came to Yale in 2010 to pursue clinical and research training in psychiatry. Her current research engages both stories and brain-based mechanisms of mental illness, asking questions about how patient social experiences relate to neural circuits and learning mechanisms.Dr. Fineberg has been awarded young investigator grants from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to pursue studies about social learning in Borderline...
Dr. Fredericks’ research focuses on preclinical Alzheimer’s disease and on less common Alzheimer’s variants, using advanced imaging tools to better understand how Alzheimer’s disease progresses through functional networks in the brain. She is a member of Yale’s Clinical Neuroscience Imaging Center (CNIC), a multidisciplinary group applying innovative imaging methods to the study of brain disease. Clinically, Dr. Fredericks sees patients with a variety of cognitive and behavioral concerns. She specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative disorders.
Dr. Dylan Gee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. She received her B.A. in Psychological and Brain Studies from Dartmouth College and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA. Dr. Gee completed her clinical internship and a postdoctoral research fellowship at Weill Cornell Medical College. Her research focuses on child and adolescent brain development in the context of developmental psychopathology, with a particular focus on neurobiological mechanisms related to early adversity and risk for anxiety and stress-related disorders. Dr. Gee’s research has been funded by the NSF, NIMH, a NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, and a Jacobs Foundation Early Career Award.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry; Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology; Director, Cognitive Neuroscience of Affect, Memories and Stress (CAMS) Lab, Psychiatry
Research Interests
Memory, Episodic
Memory, Long-Term
Stress, Physiological
Stress, Psychological
Substance-Related Disorders
Emotions
Glucocorticoids
Habits
Functional Neuroimaging
Association Learning
Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms
Alcohol Drinking
Dr. Goldfarb is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology and member of the Wu Tsai Institute. She completed her PhD in Psychology: Cognition & Perception with Dr. Elizabeth Phelps at New York University and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Departments of Diagnostic Radiology and Psychiatry with Dr. Rajita Sinha at Yale. Her research investigates different forms of learning and memory, how stress changes which parts of our experiences we remember, and the impact of memory on later behavior.
Professor of Pediatrics (Neonatology) and of Genetics; Faculty, Investigative Medicine Program, Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Research Interests
Pediatrics
Dyslexia
Genetics
Neonatology
Language
Language Development Disorders
Learning Disabilities
Investigative Techniques
Dr. Gruen received his BS and his MD degrees from Tulane University in New Orleans. He has been at Yale since beginning internship training in pediatrics in 1981, which was followed by subspecialty training in neonatology and research training in molecular genetics with Dr. Sherman Weissman. Dr. Gruen formally joined the faculty at Yale in 1988, splitting his time as a neonatology attending in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Yale-New Haven Hospital and his lab where he initially mapped the gene for hemochromatosis. By 2000, the focus of his lab turned to mapping and identifying the reading disability (dyslexia) gene locus on chromosome 6 (DYX2). His lab was the first to generate high-resolution genetic markers, genetic association maps, and gene expression maps of DYX2. These studies led to the identification of DCDC2, a dyslexia gene that was cited by the journal Science as...
Dr. Harry M. Zimmerman and Dr. Nicholas and Viola Spinelli Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience; Vice-Chair for Research, Neurology; Director, Center for Experimental Neuroimaging
Research Interests
Microglia
Regional Blood Flow
Pericytes
Nerve Fibers, Myelinated
Neurodegenerative Diseases
Microscopy
Capillaries
Cerebrovascular Circulation
Blood-Brain Barrier
Axons
Astrocytes
Alzheimer Disease
Neuronal Plasticity
Dr. Grutzendler obtained his MD from Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia, where he was born and raised. He completed a medical internship in Internal Medicine and a residency in Neurology at Washington University/Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Following that, he pursued a combined clinical and research fellowship in the Alzheimer Disease Research Center and the Department of Neurobiology at Washington University, with additional neurobiology research training at the Skirball Institute of New York University. Dr. Grutzendler's laboratory is dedicated to understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of normal brain function and neuropathology. They have a particular focus on elucidating mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration, such as those found in Alzheimer's disease. Additionally, they aim to advance the understanding of cell-cell interactions through...
Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Director of real-time fMRI
Research Interests
Neurofeedback
Neurosciences
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Psychiatry and Psychology
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
Video Games
After completing an undergraduate degree in Computing Science at the University of Alberta, Dr. Hampson did her graduate work in Boston University's Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems, a department focused on computational neural network models of brain systems. She came to Yale as a postdoc to pursue her interests in human functional neuroimaging. During her postdoc, Dr. Hampson conducted some of the earliest studies of resting-state functional connectivity, validating the technique and relating resting-state functional connectivity measures to behavioral variables. Later, she turned her focus to using real-time fMRI neurofeedback for training people to control their brain activity patterns. She is interested in novel functional neuroimaging techniques and psychiatric applications of these techniques.
Professor of Neuroscience and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and of Psychiatry; Member, Program in Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration and Repair (CNNR); Associate Director, MD-PhD Program
Research Interests
Neurobiology
Microscopy, Fluorescence, Multiphoton
Behavior
Autistic Disorder
Dendrites
Electrophysiology
Dr. Higley studied behavioral neuroscience at Cornell University. He then completed his MD and PhD in the MSTP Program and the laboratory of Dr. Diego Contreras at the University of Pennsylvania. He continued his scientific training as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Bernardo Sabatini at Harvard Medical School. In 2010, Dr. Higley joined the faculty of the Yale Department of Neuroscience and the Program in Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration, and Repair (CNNR). He was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2020. He has received numerous honors for his research, including a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Klingenstein Fellowship, and most recently the NIH Director's Pioneer Award. Dr. Higley has a secondary appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and is a member of the Wu Tsai Institute. He also serves as an Associate Director...
Associate Professor Adjunct; Associate Director of Imaging, Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
Research Interests
Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment
Alcohol-Related Disorders
Neuroimaging
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
Substance Withdrawal Syndrome
Ansel obtained his Ph.D. in Medical Physics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2014. His research program features core areas of translational characterization of novel PET radiotracers, developing new imaging paradigms to improve quantification of brain neurobiology, and human neuroimaging research studying mechanisms underlying diverse psychiatric conditions. Research efforts are complemented by didactic activities lecturing at Yale and individual mentoring of trainees. Current projects include characterizing novel PET radiotracers of immune-related targets in the brain; developing novel imaging paradigms to study acute alcohol effects on neuroimmune and glutamate systems; assessment of dopamine release from smoked cannabis; method development for analyzing multimodal imaging data from fMRI-PET or PET-PET datasets; and implementing...