Dr. Neir Eshel

“Rewiring the brain’s effort and motivation circuits to turn exhaustion into energy—offering fresh treatment paths for depression.”

Dr. Neir Eshel’s research uncovers how neural circuits governing reward, decision-making, and social behavior function in health and disease, advancing both scientific understanding and mental health care for sexual and gender minorities.

Dr. Neir Eshel (he/him) is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he provides comprehensive mental health care for sexual and gender minorities and conducts research on the neural circuits underlying reward processing, decision-making, and social behavior. His lab uses optogenetics, electrophysiology, neuroimaging, and behavioral approaches to study motivation in health and disease, with funding from the NIH, Burroughs-Wellcome Fund, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and Simons Foundation. Widely published in leading journals including Nature, Science, and Neuron, he has earned honors such as the Marshall Scholarship, NIMH Outstanding Resident Award, and the Science and SciLifeLab Grand Prize for Young Scientists. A dedicated advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, he has served as chair of Stanford’s LGBTQ+ Benefits Advocacy Committee and is an associate editor of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health. He trained at the NIH, Princeton, WHO, UCL, and Harvard.