Nolan Williams

Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Labs & Translational Neuroscience Incubator) and by courtesy, of Radiology (Neuroimaging and Neurointervention)
Director, Interventional Psychiatry Clinical Research
Director, Brain Stimulation Laboratory

Dr. Williams is an Assistant Professor within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Director of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab. Dr. Williams has a broad background in neuropsychiatry and is double board-certified in both neurology and psychiatry. In addition, he has specific training and clinical expertise in the development of brain stimulation methodologies under Mark George, MD.

Themes of his work include (a) examining the use of spaced learning theory in the application of neurostimulation techniques, (b) development and mechanistic understanding of rapid-acting antidepressants, and (c) identifying objective biomarkers that predict neuromodulation responses in treatment-resistant neuropsychiatric conditions. He has published papers in high impact peer-reviewed journals including Brain, American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. He has also contributed to two reviews related to novel therapeutics for neuropsychiatric conditions that have been published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Current Opinion in Neurobiology, which are both highly cited.

Results from his studies have gained widespread attention in journals such as Science and New England Journal of Medicine Journal Watch as well as in the popular press and have been featured in various news sources including Time, Smithsonian, and Newsweek. Dr. Williams received two NARSAD Young Investigator Awards in 2016 and 2018 along with the 2019 Gerald R. Klerman Award. Dr. Williams received the National Institute of Mental Health Biobehavioral Research Award for Innovative New Scientists in 2020. 

Greg Sahlem

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Director of the Addictions Research Section of the Lab

Dr. Sahlem is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is a board-certified psychiatrist with fellowship training in neuromodulation based treatments including repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). He additionally has advanced training in the treatment of addictive, mood, and sleep disorders. In addition to being an active clinician, Dr. Sahlem is a member of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab and directs the Addictions Research Section of the Lab.

Major areas of study for Dr. Sahlem include: The development of rTMS as a focused treatment for addictive disorders; the development of a novel form of ECT theorized to have reduced cognitive side effects, Focal Electrically Administered Seizure Therapy (FEAST), and; the further development of rTMS for the treatment of mood disorders.

The Addictions Research Section of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab is a multidisciplinary and collaborative lab focused on the translational development of new treatments for Addictive disorders. We are thus interested in bringing findings that provide an increased understanding to the development and maintenance of substance use disorders into a clinical setting; performing human laboratory trials, translational treatment / efficacy trials from phase-1 to phase-3, and research aimed at more directly improving clinical care.

Our group embraces the tripartite academic mission. Lab-members are subsequently encouraged to advance science through research, teach what they know, and improve clinical care through treatment trials. The lab has expertise in the use of neuromodulation techniques including repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), but is agnostic regarding treatment modality, focused rather on any intervention that has the potential to improve how we treat addictive disorders.

Ian Kratter

Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Medical Director of Invasive Technologies in the Brain Stimulation Lab

Dr. Kratter is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and serves as Medical Director of Invasive Technologies in the Brain Stimulation Lab.

His clinical interests include evaluation and management of psychiatric symptoms associated with movement disorders (e.g., Parkinson’s and Tourette’s), pre- and post-DBS evaluation and management, and non-invasive and invasive therapeutic options for patients with treatment-resistant depression or OCD.

His research interests include the application of novel neuromodulation approaches to psychiatric and neuropsychiatric conditions with a focus on identifying the most promising treatment targets and understanding factors associated with treatment response, non-response, and adverse effects. His recent research focused on the interaction between psychiatric history and non-motor outcomes following deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease.

Currently, studies he is involved with include using functional MRI to generate a dose-response curve for the therapeutic actions of SAINT in treatment-resistant depression and acute suicidality; developing a novel, image-based provocation paradigm for patients undergoing TMS or deep brain stimulation for OCD; and, using functional MRI, accelerated TMS, and stereoelectroencephalography to advance deep brain stimulation for severe and treatment-resistant OCD. 

Dr. Kratter is board-certified in both adult psychiatry as well as the subspecialty of behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry, and he collaborates closely with neurosurgeons, neurologists, electrophysiologists, and experts in neuroimaging in both his research and clinical care. He is active in the supervision and education of neuropsychiatry fellows, psychiatry residents, and lab members.

Mahendra “Mach” Bhati

Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Medical Director of Invasive Technologies in the Brain Stimulation Lab

Dr. Bhati is a Clinical Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosurgery at Stanford University School of Medicine.  He is an interventional psychiatrist who specializes in the management of treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders and has expertise in psychiatric diagnosis, psychopharmacology, and neuromodulation.  He was involved in some of the first controlled clinical trials investigating transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and deep brain stimulation (DBS) for treatment of depression.  He is proficient in a broad range of brain stimulation techniques including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), TMS, vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), DBS, responsive neurostimulation (RNS), and focused ultrasound (FUS).  Dr. Bhati provides clinical care in addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate students, residents, and fellows.  He is the founding director of the Stanford Interventional Psychiatry fellowship and a member of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab where he oversees research studies utilizing neuroimaging and neuromodulatory techniques to better understand and treat neuropsychiatric disorders. 

Flint M. Espil

Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Psychological Director, Brain Stimulation Lab

Dr. Espil is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Psychological Director of the Brain Stimulation Lab within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences with a decade-long interest in Obsessive-Compulsive and related disorders (OCRDs, including Tourette Disorder). He is a licensed psychologist in the state of California, with extensive training in evidence-based approaches to psychotherapy including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), the Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT), Managing and Adapting Practices (MAP) modular therapy, and Behavior Therapy for body-focused repetitive behaviors. Dr. Espil also trains and supervises PhD and PsyD practicum students working in the BSL to obtain the prerequisite hours for their graduate degrees. 

Dr. Espil’s research currently centers on mediators of treatment and ways to improve outcomes among individuals with OCRDs. This includes leveraging technology, including neuromodulation techniques (e.g., Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Accelerated Theta Burst Stimulation), with traditional behavioral techniques (e.g., Exposure and Response Prevention, Habit Reversal Training).

Dr. Espil is the principal investigator on a study to develop and pilot novel stimuli to provoke OCD symptoms in adults receiving accelerated theta-burst stimulation. He is also the PI on a study using novel imaging techniques (i.e., functional near-infrared spectroscopy) to examine changes in cortical activity during CBIT. 

Dr. Espil was the recipient of the 2017 Clinical Research Training Fellowship from the American Academy of Neurology and the Tourette Association of America. He was also awarded a 2017 National Institute of Mental Health Child Intervention and Prevention Services Research Fellowship and a 2019 Early Career Award from the Trichotillomania Learning Center Foundation for Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors.

In addition to his research, Dr. Espil routinely publishes and reviews papers in academic journals. He is currently working with Dr. Kratter to establish a Tic Disorders Specialty clinic within the Psychiatry Department at Stanford to provide better care for patients and families in the Bay Area who struggle with tics.

Cammie Rolle

Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Rolle is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Rolle completed her doctoral training in Neuroscience at Stanford in 2020, and completed a 1.5 year postdoctoral training with Dr. Casey Halpern at the University of Pennsylvania before transitioning back to Stanford to help build and lead the invasive electrophysiology research program within Psychiatry at the Brain Stimulation Lab.

Dr. Rolle’s clinical interests focus on the individualized neural-driven targeting of psychiatric treatments. She is passionate about the translational bridging between animal and human neuroscience, specifically focused on maximizing the methodological rigor in human neuroscience to better translate findings between species in psychiatry research. Dr. Rolle has spent the past few years building a line of work researching clinical neuroscience questions from invasive recordings in humans, and bridging those findings to non-invasive methodologies using simultaneous recordings. 

Currently, Dr. Rolle is helping lead a multli-site trial that will be pursuing individualized, targeted deep brain stimulation (DBS) for the treatment of tr-OCD. This study will be learning and identifying each patient’s DBS target through a elongated stereoEEG monitoring phase, during which a number of clinical assessments will be performed to localize the circuitry subserving each patient’s symptoms.

In addition to her work in research, Dr. Rolle is passionate about disseminating her research and training in cortico-limbic circuits and their role in emotional regulation and development to resource families supporting the growth of youth with a history of trauma. She is integrated into the organizational efforts of a number of nonprofits dedicated to supporting the foster community, and is determined in her efforts to inform and strengthen youth-centered therapies through neuroscientific understandings.

Jarrod Ehrie

Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciencer

Dr. Ehrie is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. He is a psychiatrist specializing in the use of interventional treatments to manage severe mental illness, particularly treatment-resistant depression. After completing residency at Columbia University, he helped conduct TMS clinical trials in Conor Liston’s lab at Weill Cornell before joining the Brain Stimulation Lab.

 In the BSL, he serves as the supervising faculty member on a multisite clinical trial working to determine if certain subtypes of depression respond more strongly to the use of SAINT on different areas of the brain, the DLPFC and DMPFC. He is also involved in a clinical trial in the Depression Research Clinic investigating whether buprenorphine can improve and extend the anti-suicidal benefits of ketamine. Clinically he treats patients on the TMS, ECT, and esketamine services at Stanford and sees patients in the depression clinic. He loves teaching and enjoys nothing more than to participate in psychiatry residency didactics and supervise residents and medical students on the clinical services.

David Spiegel

Jack, Lulu and Sam Willson Professor of Medicine

Dr. David Spiegel is Willson Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Center on Stress and Health, and Medical Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he has been a member of the academic faculty since 1975, and was Chair of the Stanford University Faculty Senate from 2010-2011. Dr. Spiegel has more than 40 years of clinical and research experience studying psycho-oncology, stress and health, pain control, psychoneuroendocrinology, sleep, hypnosis, and conducting randomized clinical trials involving psychotherapy for cancer patients. He has published thirteen books, 404 scientific journal articles, and 170 book chapters on hypnosis, psychosocial oncology, stress physiology, trauma, and psychotherapy. His research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Aging, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, the Dana Foundation for Brain Sciences, and the Nathan S. Cummings Foundation. He was a member of the work groups on stressor and trauma-related disorders for the DSM-IV and DSM-5 editions of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. He is Past President of the American College of Psychiatrists and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, and is a Member of the National Academy of Medicine. He was invited to speak on hypnosis at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2018.