Dr. Immanuel Elbau, MD, PhD

Dr. Immanuel Elbau is a psychiatrist and cognitive neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian, where he serves as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Director of the Interventional Psychiatry Program. His research focuses on the brain circuits involved in depression, bipolar disorder and related conditions, and on how treatments such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) can be personalized based on those circuits. Using advanced brain imaging, he studies how patterns of brain activity relate to symptoms and treatment response, with the goal of making psychiatric care more precise and effective.He also studies the effects of acute and chronic stress on the brain and how stress-related changes in brain circuits may contribute to psychiatric illness. His work focuses especially on circuits involved in mood, motivation and emotional regulation, helping to bridge neuroscience and clinical care. He is currently involved in a major bipolar disorder …research initiative, including a BD²-supported grant for large observational and clinical studies of TMS in bipolar disorder.Dr. Elbau earned his M.D. from the Medical University of Vienna and completed his psychiatry residency and Ph.D. in neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, where he served as Chief Resident. He went on to complete postdoctoral training at Weill Cornell Medicine and advanced fellowship training in TMS, including at Duke University. Clinically, he cares for adults across the full spectrum of psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar spectrum disorders, ADHD and schizophrenia, particularly those with complex or treatment-resistant symptoms.