Dr. Gayatri Saraf's profile photo

Gayatri Saraf

Clinician Investigator, Neuroscience

Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

Contact

613-798-5555 ext 78079

Research Groups

Gray line-style icon of a microscope.
Research Group
Hatching Ideas Lab
The Hatching Ideas Lab is a research lab headed by Dr. Simon Hatcher based out of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Our program of research f...

Bio

Dr. Gayatri Saraf completed her MBBS at Government Medical College in Nagpur, India in 2009.  She then studied at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore for her MD and residency in Psychiatry (2013), fellowship in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (2014) and senior residency (2015).  After another senior residency in Bhopal, India, she took a faculty position as Lecturer and later as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the B.J. Govt. Medical College and Sassoon General Hospitals in Maharashtra, India.  

In April of 2019, she moved to Canada for a fellowship in mood disorders at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She was awarded the prestigious Marshall fellowship twice for her research that focuses on using novel imaging methods to elucidate the neurobiology of bipolar disorder. Dr. Saraf has published articles in a wide variety of impactful journals and was recognized with a Young Investigator Award from the World of Federation of Societies for Biological Psychiatry in 2021.

In both her clinical practice and her research, Dr. Saraf believes that early intervention is extremely important because it can prevent the condition from worsening and promote better outcomes.  She wants to give people hope and reassurance that help is available if you need it. In addition to working at The Ottawa Hospital’s Urgent Care Clinic, she works at the Perinatal Mental Health Program, which addresses a big unmet need by providing mental health care to people who are pregnant or within the first year postpartum.

Research Goals and Interests

Dr. Gayatri Saraf's research focuses on looking at the efficacy of novel interventions for depression and cognitive impairment associated with bipolar disorder. Bipolar depression affects over 1 million Canadians and depression in bipolar disorder is a major driver of disability, suffering and suicidality. Individuals with bipolar disorder spend up to two-thirds of the time in depression, yet there are few approved treatment for bipolar depression.

Dr Saraf's interests aims to fill this gap by investigating novel therapeutics for bipolar depression such as circadian therapies and psychedelics. As well as using novel PET-MRI imaging measures to better understand the neurobiology of bipolar disorder by assessing neurite density and neuroinflammation.

Dr. Gayatri Saraf has multiple ongoing projects on bipolar depression. 

  1. SYNCED - SYNChronized Eating in bipolar Depression: Circadian rhythms are distrupted in bipolar disorders. Targeting the peripheral internal clock in the gut through time-restricted may improve health outcomes. This is a Randomized Control Trial for Bipolar I or II depression and with main outcomes looking at feasibility and acceptability of time-restricted eating. ONGOING RECRUITMENT
  2. Psilocybin assisted therapy for treatment resistant depression in Bipolar II disorder: psilocybin assisted therapy is the administration of psilocybin alongside psychological support. Psilocybin has been shown to have antidepressant properties. This is a Randomized Control Trial for Bipolar II disorder with main outcomes looking at efficacy, safety and tolerability of psilocybin. REGULATORY APPROVAL PENDING
  3. Evaluating neurobiology substrates of antidepressant response to psilocybin: a PET imaging study using SynVesT1: a substudy of the above psilocybin RCT that aims to investigate how psilocybin exerts its antidepressant effects through measuring changes in synaptic density in the brain. REGULATORY APPROVAL PENDING
  4. PET imaging for synaptic density in depression: a neuroimaging study aiming to investigate how synaptic density in the brain may be lower in individuals with bipolar depression and major depression disorder compared to healthy controls. This study will be using PET imaging with SynVesT1 and diffusion MRI with NODDI. ONGOING RECRUITMENT

Related Research at The Ottawa Hospital