Dr. Sohal directs a neuroscience laboratory that investigates the brain circuits underlying fundamental aspects of cognition and emotion. His laboratory has made important discoveries about the role of rhythmic patterns of brain activity called gamma oscillations in normal cognition and schizophrenia, and about how other rhythmic patterns of brain activity encode changes in emotional states. Dr. Sohal is also a board-certified psychiatrist who supervises residents in the Early Psychosis (PATH) clinic.

After earning a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics at Harvard University, Dr. Sohal earned a master's degree in mathematics at the University of Cambridge in England. He earned his medical and doctoral degrees at Stanford University, where he also completed a residency in adult psychiatry. During residency Dr. Sohal carried out postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr Karl Deisseroth, performing some of the first experiments using optogenetics to study information processing in brain circuits.