Dr. Sophie Holmes is assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University. Her research focuses on the use of brain imaging to unravel the neural basis of psychiatric symptoms across psychiatric and neurological disorders. Building on her psychology background, Dr. Holmes realized the potential of imaging for understanding human behavior and mental illness and trained in applied neuroimaging, receiving her doctorate in neuropsychiatry from the University of Manchester (UK). At Yale, Dr. Holmes has been using cutting-edge neuroimaging to advance understanding of psychiatric disorders such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. In groundbreaking work, she is identifying the brain mechanisms underlying the rapid antidepressant effects of ketamine, notably its effects on neural connections and glutamate function.

More recently, she established a first-of-its kind program at Yale that uses multimodal imaging to discover and evaluate new treatments for psychiatric symptoms in neurological disease, with a specific focus on Parkinson’s disease.