Saba Ishrat

I am a DPhil student supervised by Professor Klaus Ebmeier and Dr Anya Topiwala based at the Department of Psychiatry and the Big Data Institute. My research is generously funded by the Society for the Study of Addiction.

My research focuses on the study of substance use and addiction on brain health. In my DPhil, I work on the impact of Cannabis exposure on brain structure and functional connectivity using brain imaging and further exploring its risks related to later life psychiatry and cognitive outcomes. My research interest further aims to utilize genetic data to address the causal inference of cannabis use on long-term neurocognitive outcomes including dementia.

Prior to starting my DPhil in Oxford, I completed a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Psychology at Aligarh Muslim University (India) and a second Master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Trento (Italy). I worked as a Research Intern at Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany) investigating fiber estimation and tractography in diffusion MRI by CSD and NODDI models. I then moved to the University Medical Center Utrecht (Netherlands) where I worked as a Junior Researcher on Medical Image Analysis on the EPISTOP project involving neuroimaging studies, investigating the biomarkers of epilepsy risks and neurodevelopment in infants with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.

Alongside my DPhil studies, I am the Junior Dean at St Cross College, a committee member at St Edmund Hall's Centre for the Creative Brain, and a student associate of the Society for the Study of Addiction.