Associate Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Director, NeuroPET Imaging Program, Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Medical Director, Yale Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Center
Research Interests
Autistic Disorder
Addiction Medicine
Frontotemporal Dementia
Essential Tremor
Meditation
Mental Disorders
Neuroimaging
Neuropsychiatry
Molecular Imaging
Parkinson Disease
Social Class
I am a board certified psychiatrist and neuropsychiatrist with research work that has been translational in nature and focused on elucidating the underlying pathology of brain conditions such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, substance abuse and neuropsychiatric disorders (e.g., Parkinson's disease) with an aim to find effective clinical treatments guided by molecular neuroimaging. Studies have included using in vivo PET imaging to investigate the role of neuroreceptors such as dopamine D3, serotonin 1B and 6, MGlur5 and kappa opioid systems, neuroinflammation, and most recently, synaptic density (SV2A) in clinical and nonclinical populations. Ongoing interests include imaging neuropsychiatric and addictive disorders and the demographic, social and environmental factors influencing our brain.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry; Director, Yale Cocaine Research Clinic, Psychiatry; Inpatient Chief of the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit (CNRU), Psychiatry; Medical Director, Forensic Drug Diversion Clinic (ForDD)
Experiencing the impact of the cocaine epidemic in my native Colombia led me to pursue a career dedicated to the improved understanding and treatment of cocaine addiction. Since completing Clinical Training and becoming U.S Board Certified in Adult Psychiatry and Addictions Psychiatry in 2012, I have developed academic interest in the regulation of cocaine self-administration in humans, the validation of Remote Wireless Sensor Network (RWSN) technology for detecting cocaine use, and the role of cocaine-induced deficits in sleep in the putative therapeutic effects of the atypical stimulant, modafinil. Currently; my main career interests lie in the development of neurobiologically informed medication treatments for cocaine dependence, such as the ones based on homeostatic changes on the glutamatergic pathways. As Inpatient Chief of the Clinical Neuroscience Research...
Dr. Faranak Ebrahimian, a physician from Iran, has a clinical background as a general practitioner, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a research interest in Neurology and Radiology; she is currently a postdoctoral associate in the NeuroPET Imaging Program. Her current research interests revolve around the application of PET and MRI for diagnosing and understanding the pathophysiology of brain disorders, including Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and autism.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and of Neurology; Medical Director, Dementia and Behavioral Neurology, Neurology
Research Interests
Neurodegenerative Diseases
Neurosciences
Dr. Fesharaki is currently a neuropsychiatrist, as well as a basic neuroscience researcher focusing on Traumatic Brain Injury and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. He has a diverse training background, which include a mixture of clinical adult psychiatry, clinical behavioral neurology/neuropsychiatry and bench neuroscience skills. This combination of aforementioned skills has in turn given him a unique vantage point to have the opportunity to apply what he continues to learn in the laboratory to enrich his clinical treatment. His current research focus is to develop a robust animal model of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), as well as investigation of potential treatment modalities. He is also involved in a collaborative research study investigating synaptic density alterations in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD).
Kathleen Garrison, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. She earned a BS in Neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles, an MSc in Neuroscience from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Southern California. Katie completed her Postdoctoral Training in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale. Katie's research program aims to develop innovative treatments for addictions by understanding the underlying neurobiological processes, designing novel interventions and testing these in randomized clinical trials. Her work is largely focused on tobacco use, but extends to other addictive disorders. Her work uses advanced methods in neuroimaging and mobile health which are generalizable. This enables her research program to be dynamic, highly collaborative, and...
Harris Professor in the Child Study Center; Director, Center for Brain and Mind Health; Director, Yale Developmental Disabilities Clinic; Director of Undergraduate Studies, Yale Child Study Center; Co-Director of Team Science, Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI)
Research Interests
Social Perception
Psychology, Child
Psychophysiology
Developmental Disabilities
Child Development
Child Development Disorders, Pervasive
Evoked Potentials
Event-Related Potentials, P300
Anatomy
Autistic Disorder
Asperger Syndrome
James C. McPartland, Ph.D., is the Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry and Psychology at the Yale Child Study Center. He is a practicing licensed child psychologist and Director of the Yale Developmental Disabilities Clinic. Dr. McPartland is a Director of the Yale Center for Brain and Mind Health, Co-Director of Team Science at the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Child Study Center, and the Principal Investigator of the Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials, a US-based effort to identify biomarkers to support intervention research in autism. Dr. McPartland began clinical research in neurodevelopmental conditions as an undergraduate at Harvard University, graduating with High Honors in Psychology in 1996. He earned his doctoral degree in Child Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington in 2005 and completed autism-...
Associate Professor of Psychiatry; Associate Professor, Radiology and Biomedical Imaging; Co-Medical Director, Yale PET Center; Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health
Dr. Tinaz attended medical school at the University of Istanbul Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey. As a clinical research fellow at the Behavioral Neurology and Movement Disorders Division at the Department of Neurology, Istanbul University, she was an associate investigator and member of the clinical team of the first epidemiological study on Alzheimer's disease in Turkey. She expanded her skills to include neuroimaging as a graduate student of the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory at Boston University. She completed her residency training in Neurology at the Boston University Medical Center. During her fellowship in the Human Motor Control Section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, she was involved in the clinical evaluation and care of patients with the full spectrum of movement disorders including Parkinson'...