Prof. Martijn Figee

Dr. Figee is a psychiatrist and associate professor of Psychiatry, Neurosurgery, Neurology and Neuroscience working at the Nash Family Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics (C-ACT). Dr. Figee is director of the Mount Sinai Interventional Psychiatry Program, focusing on the psychiatric application and study of neuromodulation, in particular deep brain stimulation (DBS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). He received his medical degree, residency and PhD from the University of Amsterdam.

His research focuses on the role of reward and mood circuits in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), depression and Parkinson’s disease, and how these circuits can be modulated with DBS. He pioneered the first application of fMRI in DBS-implanted individuals. He has published numerous scientific articles and book chapters on DBS for psychiatry. Dr. Figee aims to progress DBS and other types of neuromodulation as neuropsychiatric interventions, by investigating its effects on cross-diagnostic outcomes and associated neural networks.

Deep-brain stimulation (DBS) is a relatively new psychiatric treatment method involving chronically implanted brain electrodes and an electrical pulse generator for correcting pathological brain activity. DBS holds great promise to treat psychiatric disorders when medication or psychotherapy fail to help. However, the therapeutic benefits of DBS in psychiatry are highly dependent on the modulation of specific brain circuits by anatomically precisely implanted electrodes. Improved understanding of symptom-specific brain circuits and neural changes involved in psychiatric DBS is needed to advance this treatment. Dr. Figee will discuss the latest advances in DBS for obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and other neuropsychiatric indications. Personalized circuit specific targeting will greatly improve DBS outcomes and provide new insights into cross-diagnostic neuropsychiatric brain circuits.

1. Smith A, Mayberg H, Figee M. (2025) Neuromodulation and Psychiatric Disorders in: Charney and Nestler’s Neurobiology of Mental Illness, Jan 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780197640654.003.0010
2. Figee M, Mayberg H. (2021) Deep Brain Stimulation for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Why Anatomy Matters. Biol Psychiatry. 2021 Nov;90(10):662-663.
3. Alagapan S, et al. (2023) Cingulate dynamics track depression recovery with deep brain stimulation. Nature. 2023 Oct;622(7981):130-138.
4. Figee M, Riva-Posse P, Choi KS, Bederson L, Mayberg HS, Kopell BH. (2022) Deep Brain Stimulation for Depression. Neurotherapeutics. 2022 Jul;19(4):1229-1245.