School of Medicine
Showing 1-10 of 32 Results
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Daniel Arthur Abrams
Clinical Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAutism spectrum disorders (ASD) are among the most pervasive neurodevelopmental disorders and are characterized by significant deficits in social communication. A common observation in children with ASD is that affected individuals often “tune out” from social interactions, which likely impacts the development of social, communication, and language skills. My primary research goals are to understand why children with ASD often tune out from the social world and how this impacts social skill and brain development, and to identify remediation strategies that motivate children with ASD to engage in social interactions. The theoretical framework that guides my work is that social impairments in ASD stem from a primary deficit in identifying social stimuli, such as human voices and faces, as rewarding and salient stimuli, thereby precluding children with ASD from engaging with these stimuli.
My program of research has provided important information regarding the brain circuits underlying social deficits in ASD. Importantly, these findings have consistently implicated key structures of the brain’s reward and salience processing systems, and support the hypothesis that impaired reward attribution to social stimuli is a critical aspect of social difficulties in ASD. The first study produced by this program of research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and showed that children with ASD have weak brain connectivity between voice processing regions of cortex and the distributed reward circuit and amygdala. Moreover, the strength of these speech-reward brain connections predicted social communication abilities in these children. A second study, which was recently published in eLife, examined neural processing of mother’s voice, a biologically salient and implicitly rewarding sound which is associated with cognitive and social development, in children with ASD. Results from this study identified a relationship between social communication abilities in children with ASD and brain activation in reward and salience processing regions during mother’s voice processing. A third study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that mother’s voice activates an extended voice processing network, including reward and salience processing regions, in typically developing children. Moreover, the strength of brain connectivity between voice-selective and reward and salience processing regions predicted social communication abilities in these neurotypical children. Together, results provide novel support for the hypothesis that deficits in representing the reward value of social stimuli, including the human voice, impede children with ASD from actively engaging with these stimuli and consequently impair social skill development.
My future research will leverage these findings by examining several important questions related to social information processing in children with ASD. First, we aim to study longitudinal development of social brain circuitry in minimally verbal children with ASD, a severely affected subpopulation that has been vastly underrepresented in the ASD literature. Second, we aim to examine the efficacy of naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions, such as Pivotal Response Treatment, for children with ASD and their relation to changes in social brain and reward circuitry. Third, we aim to examine distinct neural profiles in female children with ASD who, on average, have better social communication abilities compared to their male counterparts. -
Ehsan Adeli
Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research lies in the intersection of Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Healthcare, and Computational Neuroscience.
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Helen M. Blau
Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation Professor, Director, Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology and Professor, by courtesy, of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
On Partial Leave from 01/01/2021 To 12/31/2021Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProf. Helen Blau's research area is regenerative medicine with a focus on stem cells. Her research on nuclear reprogramming and demonstrating the plasticity of cell fate using cell fusion is well known and her laboratory has also pioneered the design of biomaterials to mimic the in vivo microenvironment and direct stem cell fate. Current findings are leading to more efficient iPS generation, cell based therapies by dedifferentiation a la newts, and discovery of novel molecules and therapies.
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Daniel Bowling, PhD
Instructor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioDr. Bowling is an instructor in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of medicine. His research is focused on auditory-vocal communication in social functioning and mental health.
Dr. Bowling earned his PhD in Neurobiology from Duke University School of Medicine, going on to complete postdoctoral and fellowship work at the University of Vienna in Austria. He holds graduate certificates in Cognitive Neuroscience and Translational Medicine, and undergraduate degrees in Biological Psychology and Neurophilosophy. He joined Stanford in December of 2018.
Dr. Bowling has published over 30 scientific articles in journals such as Science, PNAS, Trends in Cognitive Science, Scientific Reports, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and PLoS Biology. His work has been recognized with plaudits including an innovation award from the Social and Affective Neuroscience society, a young investigator award from the faculty of life science at the University of Vienna, and awards for best talk and best poster at international conferences. He has received funding at institutional and federal levels in the United States and in Austria. -
Victor G. Carrión
John A. Turner Endowed Professor for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
On Leave from 10/10/2021 To 12/10/2021Current Research and Scholarly InterestsExamines the interplay between brain development and stress vulnerability via a multi-method approach that includes psychophysiology, neuroimaging, neuroendocrinology and phenomenology. Treatment development that focuses on individual and community-based interventions for stress related conditions in children and adolescents that experience traumatic stress.
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Sundari Chetty
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Chetty lab is interested in understanding the mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. In particular, our group has been investigating the mechanisms underlying brain overgrowth or undergrowth in these disorders using human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) technology. Changes in brain size often precede clinical symptoms, suggesting that understanding the underlying mechanisms regulating brain overgrowth or undergrowth could provide a window of opportunity for intervention or mitigation of symptoms.
Using hiPSCs from idiopathic patients as well as those with known genetic variations, we generate iPSC-derived cortical neural and oligodendroglial cells to investigate changes at the cellular, functional, and mechanistic levels using a broad range of techniques from RNA sequencing, genome editing, to functional assays in in vitro and in vivo models. The overarching goal of our research program is to identify novel therapeutic targets based on these mechanistic insights. -
Luis de Lecea
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical and Translational Neurosciences Incubator)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy lab uses molecular, optogenetic, anatomical and behavioral methods to identify and manipulate the neuronal circuits underlying brain arousal, with particular attention to sleep and wakefulness transitions. We are also interested in the changes that occur in neuronal circuits in conditions of hyperarousal such as stress and drug addiction.
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Karl Deisseroth
D. H. Chen Professor, Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsKarl Deisseroth's laboratory created and developed optogenetics, hydrogel-tissue chemistry (beginning with CLARITY), and a broad range of enabling methods. He also has employed his technologies to discover the neural cell types and connections that cause adaptive and maladaptive behaviors.
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Laramie Duncan
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study genetic and environmental effects on mental health. Much of our work is computational and it relies upon genetic data, collected from millions of individuals, from around the world. We use genetic approaches because the overall goal of the lab is to discover fundamental information about psychiatric disorders, and ultimately to build more rational approaches to classification, prevention, and treatment.
