Brent R Carr, M.D.

As Co-Director of the Neuromodulation Fellowship Training Program and Chief of Electroconvulsive Therapy Services, I oversee the management of UF’s dual-hospital ECT facilities while leading psychiatric Deep Brain Stimulation programming and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. My role fosters interdisciplinary collaboration across psychiatry, neurology, neurosurgery, and anesthesia, unified by a commitment to innovation in patient care. Alongside these clinical and academic responsibilities, I maintain a part-time engagement at the Student Health Center, where the pursuit of student well-being remains an immediate and ongoing priority.

My clinical and intellectual pursuits traverse psychiatry and its conceptual edge—engaging neuromodulation, the metaphysics of field interaction, and avant-garde frontiers including psychedelic neuroscience and neurophenomenology. This work is underpinned by a growing philosophical inquiry into the ontological and ethical architectures of psychiatric suffering. I engage in psychiatric movement disorders—including Parkinsonian affective presentations—and collegiate sports psychiatry, exploring the affective and neuropsychiatric consequences of embodied disruption, performance, and repair. Across these domains, I advocate for the integration of the arts and humanities into clinical care—not as ornamentation, but as epistemic and ethical counterparts to the therapeutic act. The most urgent insights often emerge at disciplinary boundaries: where certainty thins, where attention deepens, and where the unknown begins to structure inquiry.

My academic foundation was laid at Louisiana State University, where I earned undergraduate degrees in zoology, physiology, and philosophy before completing medical school at LSU New Orleans. I pursued psychiatry residency at Tulane University, where I remained for two decades, serving as Director of ECT. Further refining my specialization in neuropsychiatric intervention, I completed fellowships in electroconvulsive therapy at Emory University and in transcranial magnetic stimulation at Duke University, solidifying a career devoted to the evolution of psychiatric therapeutics.

Mentorship, for me, is not only a matter of guidance but of catalyzing inquiry, fostering independent thought, and cultivating the precision of scholarly expression. I work closely with students and residents to develop first-author projects across a wide array of neuropsychiatric and philosophical topics, many of which are presented on national and international stages, including the World Federation of Neurology, the World Congress of Psychiatry, and the APA. These collaborations span psychopharmacology, affective neuroscience, ethics, and the theoretical architectures of mental illness. Through this work, I aim to mentor the next generation of leaders while advancing a model of psychiatry that is intellectually rigorous, ethically attuned, and open to the evolving metaphysics of mind. ✦✧✦ Students with a strong interest in scholarship or residents seeking to pursue the Neuromodulation Fellowship are encouraged to reach out directly via email. ✦✧✦

My research operates where clinical precision meets conceptual instability. I contribute to national efforts—such as the GenECT initiative and the NNDC ketamine consensus work—that aim to identify biomarkers and clarify therapeutic boundaries in treatment-resistant depression. In parallel, I collaborate with neuromodulation developers on programming strategies for deep brain stimulation, advancing real-time adjustments that move beyond static stimulation models.

But these projects are not only technical—they expose the deeper architectures of psychiatric care: how we define response, failure, agency, and risk. My work challenges inherited frameworks of symptom ontology and ethical action, drawing on philosophy of psychiatry to interrogate the metaphysical assumptions that underwrite intervention. Whether in device programming, neuroethical consultation, or field-level guideline development, I treat research as a space where psychiatry’s unexamined foundations come into view—and where new forms of rigor become possible.