Faculty profile

Venkat Bhat

ResearcherBehavioural Neuroscience & PsychiatryUniversity of Toronto

This profile is built from public research funding records (CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC) and PubMed. We have not imported them from a University of Toronto directory, so their courses may be missing. Find their university profile.

Venkat Bhat

Researcher

Behavioural Neuroscience & Psychiatry

Health Sciences

University of Toronto

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Supervision signals

Has led research grants, which requires an independent research appointment. Ask their department whether they supervise graduate students.
123 publications in the last five years, latest in 2026.
Senior (last) author on 99 recent papers, a sign of leading a research group.
Principal investigator on 12 research grants (8 CIHR, 4 SSHRC), most recently in 2026.
Supervised 13 trainees who won CIHR awards, most recently in 2026.

These signals come from public records, including CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC funding decisions. Ask the professor or the graduate program whether they are taking new students.

Academic metrics

141

Publications

638

Citations

h-index

Collaborators

Grants

Publications by year

Counts cover the works listed on the university profile; citation counts come from Dimensions.

Profiles and links

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Signals and details

Research

Major Depressive Disorder Artificial Intelligence Conversational Agent Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Pilot Trial Randomized Controlled Trial Agentic Ai Cognitive Processing Therapy

Latest papers

SYNERGY-VAE: An explainable generative deep learning framework for discovering depression subgroups from multimodal population health data.
PLOS digital health · 2026 · senior author
Adherence to Physical Activity Interventions in Major Depressive Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Psychotherapy and psychosomatics · 2026 · senior author
Assessing the impact of safety guardrails on large language models using irritability metrics.
NPJ digital medicine · 2026 · senior author

All 141 publications

Latest funding

MIRA for Adaptive CLinical Evaluation in Depression (MIRACLE-D): Design and Evaluation of an AI-Powered Personalized Virtual Assistant for Depression Care
CIHR · 2026 · Nominated PI
$100,000
A Tale of Two Targets: A Multisite, Randomized, Sham-Controlled Neurofeedback Clinical Trial Examining Regulation of the Amygdala vs. the Posterior Cingulate Cortex in PTSD
CIHR · 2026 · Co-investigator
$948,600
Analyzing Safety and Interpretability of Large Language Models in Mental Health under Multi-Modal Stressor Inputs
CIHR · 2026 · Supervisor
$140,000

All 34 grants and awards

141 publications.

SYNERGY-VAE: An explainable generative deep learning framework for discovering depression subgroups from multimodal population health data.

Sharma D, Rueda A, Lin Q, Meshkat S, Perivolaris A, Bhat V

PLOS digital health2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pdig.0001719 PMID: 42784642

Adherence to Physical Activity Interventions in Major Depressive Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Tassone VK, Lin Q, Li G, Rao A, Duscio V, Mathur T, Uthayakumar H, Sohail SZ, Kar S, Quesnel DA, Lou W, Wiljer D, Sabiston CM, Mulsant B, Bhat V

Psychotherapy and psychosomatics2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1159/000550802 PMID: 41615879

Assessing the impact of safety guardrails on large language models using irritability metrics.

Teferra BG, Johny N, Huang S, Rueda A, Kamaleddin MA, Dunlop K, Zhang Y, Jha M, Sharma D, Bhat V

NPJ digital medicine2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1038/s41746-025-02333-3 PMID: 41507509

Ketogenic Diets and Depression and Anxiety: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Janssen-Aguilar R, Vije T, Peera M, Al-Shamali HF, Meshkat S, Lin Q, Lou W, Laviada-Molina H, Phillips ML, Bhat V

JAMA psychiatry2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2025.3261 PMID: 41191382

Machine Learning Reveals How Depression Influences Chest Pain Localisation and Its Predictive Value for Coronary Artery Disease.

Malik MI, Lou W, Bisleri G, Connelly K, Bhat V

The Canadian journal of cardiology2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1016/j.cjca.2025.09.017 PMID: 40972896

The AWARE (AI Use, Why, Attachment, Reality and Risk, and Effect on Functioning) Framework for Assessing Patients' Use of AI in Mental Health Care.

Hudon A, Bhat V, Nunez JJ, Paquin V, Malouin-Lachance A, Lespérance F

JMIR medical education2026

DOI: 10.2196/108766 PMID: 42749279

Safety and tolerability of temporal interference stimulation in humans: A systematic review and meta-analysis of an emerging deep neuromodulation technology.

Demchenko I, Lin Q, Patel Y, Tang A, Joseph J, Torresan O, Hunter M, Tong X, Gholamali Nezhad F, Janssen-Aguilar R, Schweizer TA, Kennedy SH, Datta A, Huang Y, Rampersad S, Jha MK, Violante IR, Boutet A, Chen R, Lozano AM, Bhat V

Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2026.106981 PMID: 42749234

Functional electrical stimulation for major depressive disorder: Protocol for a pilot randomized controlled trial.

Gholamali Nezhad F, Yu H, Demchenko I, Iwasa SN, DiNunzio S, Ghosh R, Zariffa J, Masani K, Lou W, Mulsant BH, Naguib HE, Popovic MR, Bhat V

PloS one2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0357381 PMID: 42721198

Leveraging prompt-driven generative AI for systematic reviews in digital psychiatry: A stage-matched comparative proof-of-concept for healthcare researchers and clinicians.

Parkington K, Joseph JT, Musleh K, Rouleau-Tang M, Persaud A, Rueda A, Teferra BG, Al-Shamali HF, Mao W, Nezhad FG, Burback L, Zhang Y, Jetly R, Vermetten E, Monson C, Krishnan S, Zeifman RJ, Greenshaw A, Lou W, Bhat V

PLOS digital health2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pdig.0001666 PMID: 42721190

Too agreeable to be accurate? Sycophancy and diagnostic instability of large language models in medical diagnosis.

Samsel K, Dharma C, Rezaei AHM, Bahakim A, Ravikumar K, Bhat V, Kamaleddinn MA, Shakeri Z

Artificial intelligence in medicine2026

DOI: 10.1016/j.artmed.2026.103516 PMID: 42721584

Write to this professor

A short, specific email works best. This draft uses one of their recent papers; replace the parts in brackets with your own details before sending.

Applying for

Paper to mentionMention their CIHR grant from 2026

Subject: Prospective PhD student: Major Depressive Disorder Dear Professor Bhat, My name is [your name], and I am a [your current degree or role] at [your institution]. I am applying for a PhD position starting in [term and year]. I read your paper "SYNERGY-VAE: An explainable generative deep learning framework for discovering depression subgroups from multimodal population health data." (2026), and it connects closely to my own work on [your research topic]. [One or two sentences on what you did and what you learned.] I also saw your CIHR-funded project "MIRA for Adaptive CLinical Evaluation in Depression (MIRACLE-D): Design and Evaluation of an AI-Powered Personalized Virtual Assistant for Depression Care" (2026), and I would be glad to contribute to work in that direction. Are you accepting new PhD students for [term and year]? I have attached my CV and transcripts, and I would be glad to talk at a time that suits you. Thank you for your time. Kind regards, [your name]

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Venkat Bhat

Research

Latest papers

Latest funding

SYNERGY-VAE: An explainable generative deep learning framework for discovering depression subgroups from multimodal population health data.

Adherence to Physical Activity Interventions in Major Depressive Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Assessing the impact of safety guardrails on large language models using irritability metrics.

Ketogenic Diets and Depression and Anxiety: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Machine Learning Reveals How Depression Influences Chest Pain Localisation and Its Predictive Value for Coronary Artery Disease.

The AWARE (AI Use, Why, Attachment, Reality and Risk, and Effect on Functioning) Framework for Assessing Patients' Use of AI in Mental Health Care.

Safety and tolerability of temporal interference stimulation in humans: A systematic review and meta-analysis of an emerging deep neuromodulation technology.

Functional electrical stimulation for major depressive disorder: Protocol for a pilot randomized controlled trial.

Leveraging prompt-driven generative AI for systematic reviews in digital psychiatry: A stage-matched comparative proof-of-concept for healthcare researchers and clinicians.

Too agreeable to be accurate? Sycophancy and diagnostic instability of large language models in medical diagnosis.

Frequent collaborators

Wendy Lou

Yanbo Zhang

Andrew Greenshaw

Benicio Frey

Katharine Dunlop

Peter Giacobbe

Alexandre Boutet

Divya Sharma

Adam Dubrowski

Andrew Nicholson

Bo Cao

Robert Chen

Reza Samavi

Roumen Milev

Candice Monson

Candice Monson

Candice Monson

Ruth Lanius

Gillian Strudwick

Pierre Blier

Jamie Robertson

Daphne Voineskos

Elizabeth Peter

Rudolf Uher

Paul Frewen

Anthony Nazarov

Mamatha Bhat

Jane Foster

Jitender Sareen

Ruth Lanius

Valerie Taylor

David Sussman

Stefan Kloiber

Andrew Nicholson

Benoit Mulsant

Gustavo Saposnik

Zahra Shakeri

Daniel Felsky

Alexander Mcgirr

Tyler Kaster