School of Medicine
Showing 1-34 of 34 Results
-
Daniel A. 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.
-
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
Current 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.
-
Daniel Bowling, PhD
Instructor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioMy research aims to translate progress in biological speech and music sciences into improved diagnostics and treatments for social, affective, and cognitive dimensions of mental health, including disorders of sociality, mood, attention, and anxiety. See more here: https://psyarxiv.com/fxsnz/
I hold a PhD in Neurobiology from Duke University School of Medicine, where I studied the biological foundations of musical tonality. I completed postdoctoral work at the University of Vienna, where I studied bioacoustics, rhythm, synchrony, and social bonding. I also hold graduate certificates in Cognitive Neuroscience and Translational Medicine, and undergraduate degrees in Biological Psychology and Neurophilosophy.
I have authored over 30 scientific articles in top journals including Science, PNAS, Molecular Psychiatry, PLoS Biology, Trends in Cognitive Science, and Physics of Life. My work has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Austrian Science Foundation, the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Vienna, and the Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute at Stanford University. -
Weidong Cai
Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioMy research focuses on brain mechanisms underlying cognitive deficits in two distinct populations: children with neurodevelopmental disorders, especially kids with ADHD, and elders with neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease. By integrating cognitive, neuroscience, and computational models with advanced functional neuroimaging techniques, my goal is to understand the neurocognitive factors that contribute to typical and atypical brain development and aging.
-
Victor G. Carrión
John A. Turner Endowed Professor for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Current 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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Neir Eshel, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories & Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator)
BioDr. Eshel (he/him/his) is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.
His clinical focus is the full-spectrum mental health care of sexual and gender minorities, with particular interest in depression, anxiety, and the complex effects of trauma in this population. He works in collaboration with other primary care and mental health providers at the new Stanford LGBTQ+ program.
His research interests (www.staarlab.com) include the use of optogenetic, electrophysiological, neuroimaging, and behavioral approaches to probe the neural circuits of reward processing, decision making, and social behavior. He recently won multi-year grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, Burroughs-Wellcome Fund, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and Simons Foundation to study the neural circuits of frustration and aggression.
Dr. Eshel has published articles on topics such as the role of dopamine in learning, the neuroscience of irritability, LGBTQ health, reward and punishment processing in depression, behavioral predictors of substance use among adolescents, and the mechanism of transcranial magnetic stimulation. His work has appeared in Nature, Science, Nature Neuroscience, Annual Review of Neuroscience, JAMA, JAMA Psychiatry, Neuropsychopharmacology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Journal of Neuroscience. He is also the author of the book Learning: The Science Inside, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He has delivered presentations on anger expression in patients with PTSD, the neural circuitry of learning, dopamine prediction errors, and LGBTQ-related topics at meetings of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Society of Biological Psychiatry, and Association of American Medical Colleges, among others. He is also an associate editor of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health, and an ad-hoc reviewer for numerous publications including Science, JAMA Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, and Current Biology.
Dr. Eshel has won honors for his scholarship and advocacy, including the Marshall Scholarship, the Outstanding Resident Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Science and SciLifeLab Grand Prize for Young Scientists, and the National LGBT Health Achievement Award.
He is a member of the American Psychiatric Association, Society of Biological Psychiatry, Association of Gay & Lesbian Psychiatrists, Society for Neuroscience, and other professional associations. He is also an advocate for LGBTQ rights, recently serving as the LGBTQ Chair of the Stanford Graduate Medical Education Diversity Committee.
Prior to Stanford, Dr. Eshel trained and conducted research at the National Institutes of Health, Princeton University, the World Health Organization, University College London, and Harvard University. -
Lawrence Fung MD PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories & Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Lawrence Fung an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He is the director of the Stanford Neurodiversity Project, director of the Neurodiversity Clinic, and principal investigator at the Fung Lab. His work, which focuses on autism and neurodiversity, traverses from multi-modal neuroimaging studies to new conceptualization of neurodiversity and its application to clinical, education, and employment settings. His lab advances the understanding of neural bases of human socio-communicative and cognitive functions by using novel neuroimaging and bioanalytical technologies. Using community-based participatory research approach, his team devises and implements novel interventions to improve the lives of neurodiverse individuals by maximizing their potential and productivity. His work has been supported by various agencies including the National Institutes of Health, Autism Speaks, California Department of Developmental Services, California Department of Rehabilitation, as well as philanthropy. He received his PhD in chemical engineering from Cornell University, and MD from George Washington University. He completed his general psychiatry residency, child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship, and postdoctoral research fellowship at Stanford.
-
Andrew D. Huberman
Associate Professor of Neurobiology and, by courtesy, of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly Interests1) We study neural regeneration with the goal of developing treatments to prevent and reverse vision loss. (e.g., Huberman, Nature 2020; Laha and Huberman, Science, 2017; Lim et al., Nature Neuroscience, 2016).
2) We are parsing the neural circuits for anxiety, and visually-driven autonomic arousal, (e.g., Salay et al., Nature, 2018; Yilmaz-Balban et al., Current Biology, 2021). -
Douglas F. Levinson, M.D.
Walter E. Nichols, M.D. Professor in the School of Medicine, Emeritus
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Levinson directs the Program on the Genetics of Brain Function in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. The program investigates the genetic basis of psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia and major depressive disorder), using genetic association, linkage and resequencing methodologies. In collaboration with Dr. Alice Whittemore, we are also actively engaged in statistical methods testing and development for genetic research.
-
Robert Malenka
Nancy Friend Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsLong-lasting changes in synaptic strength are important for the modification of neural circuits by experience. A major goal of my laboratory is to elucidate the molecular events that trigger various forms of synaptic plasticity and the modifications in synaptic proteins that are responsible for the changes in synaptic efficacy.
-
Ryan Matlow
Clinical Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioRyan Matlow, Ph.D., is a child clinical psychologist who serves as Director of Community Programs for Stanford’s Early Life Stress and Resilience Program, and is a faculty member in Stanford's Human Rights and Trauma Mental Health Program. His clinical and research efforts focus on understanding and addressing the impact of stress, adversity, and trauma in children, families, and communities. In particular, Dr. Matlow seeks to apply current scientific knowledge of the neurobiological and developmental impact of stress, trauma, and adversity in shaping interventions and systems of care. Dr. Matlow is focused on engaging diverse populations and providing evidence-based individual, family, and systems interventions for posttraumatic stress following interpersonal trauma, with an emphasis on efforts in school, community, and integrated care settings. He is engaged in clinical service, program development, and interdisciplinary collaboration efforts that address childhood trauma exposure in communities that have been historically marginalized, under-resourced, and/or experienced human rights violations. He has worked extensively in providing trauma-focused psychological evaluation, treatment, and advocacy services with immigrant youth and families, with a focus on immigrants from Latin American countries. Dr. Matlow is involved in the training and dissemination of Stanford's Cue Centered Therapy (Carrion, 2015), a flexible, manualized intervention addressing childhood experiences of chronic trauma.
-
Vinod Menon
Rachael L. and Walter F. Nichols, MD, Professor and Professor, by courtesy, of Education and of Neurology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsEXPERIMENTAL, CLINICAL AND THEORETICAL SYSTEMS NEUROSCIENCE
Cognitive neuroscience; Systems neuroscience; Cognitive development; Psychiatric neuroscience; Functional brain imaging; Dynamical basis of brain function; Nonlinear dynamics of neural systems. -
Philippe Mourrain
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator)
BioExpertise: Neurobiology, Sleep sciences, Molecular Genetics, Developmental Biology, Gene Silencing/Epigenetics
Methodology: Synapse Imaging (Two photon microscopy, Array Tomography), Calcium Imaging (Light Sheet Microscopy/SPIM, Light Field Microscopy), Optogenetics, CLARITY, Tol2 transgenesis, TALENs, CRISPR/Cas9, Video tracking and behavior computation. -
Karen J. Parker, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator) and, by courtesy, of Comparative Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Parker Lab conducts research on the biology of social functioning in monkeys, typically developing humans, and patients with social impairments.
-
Kilian M Pohl
Associate Professor (Research) of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Public Mental Health and Population Sciences)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe foundation of the laboratory of Associate Professor Kilian M. Pohl, PhD, is computational science aimed at identifying biomedical phenotypes improving the mechanistic understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. The biomedical phenotypes are discovered by unbiased, machine learning-based searches across biological, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological data. This data-driven discovery currently supports the adolescent brain research of the NIH-funded National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) and the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD), the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the US. The laboratory also investigates brain patterns specific to alcohol use disorder and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) across the adult age range, and have advanced the understanding of a variety of brain diseases including schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, glioma, and aging.
-
Nirao Shah
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator), of Neurobiology and, by courtesy, of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWe study how our brains generate social interactions that differ between the sexes. Such gender differences in behavior are regulated by sex hormones, experience, and social cues. Accordingly, we are characterizing how these internal and external factors control gene expression and neuronal physiology in the two sexes to generate behavior. We are also interested in understanding how such sex differences in the healthy brain translate to sex differences in many neuro-psychiatric illnesses.
-
David Spiegel
Jack, Lulu and Sam Willson Professor of Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Spiegel's research program involves mind/body interactions, including cancer progression, the response to traumatic stress, and the effect of hypnosis on the perception of pain and anxiety.
-
Edith Vioni Sullivan
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsApplication of neuroimaging modalities and component process analysis of cognitive, sensory, and motor functions to identify brain structural and functional mechanisms disrupted in diseases affecting the brain: alcohol use disorder, HIV infection, dementia, and normal aging from adolescence to senescence.
-
Alexander Eckehart Urban
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator) and of Genetics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsComplex behavioral and neuropsychiatric phenotypes often have a strong genetic component. This genetic component is often extremely complex and difficult to dissect. The current revolution in genome technology means that we can avail ourselves to tools that make it possible for the first time to begin understanding the complex genetic and epigenetic interactions at the basis of the human mind.
-
Leanne Williams
Vincent V.C. Woo Professor, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories and Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator) and, by courtesy, of Psychology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsA revolution is under way in psychiatry. We can now understand mental illness as an expression of underlying brain circuit disruptions, shaped by experience and genetics. Our lab is defining precision brain circuit biotypes for depression, anxiety and related disorders. We integrate large amounts of brain imaging, behavioral and clinical data and computational approaches. Biotypes are used in personalized intervention studies with selective drugs, neuromodulation and exploratory therapeutics.
-
Nolan Williams
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories & Clinical Translational Neurosciences Incubator) and, by courtesy, of Radiology (Neuroimaging and Neurointervention)
BioDr. Williams is an Associate Professor within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Director of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab. Dr. Williams has a broad background in clinical neuroscience and is triple board-certified in general neurology, general psychiatry, as well as behavioral neurology & neuropsychiatry. In addition, he has specific training and clinical expertise in the development of brain stimulation methodologies. Themes of his work include (a) examining the use of spaced learning theory in the application of neurostimulation techniques, (b) development and mechanistic understanding of rapid-acting antidepressants, and (c) identifying objective biomarkers that predict neuromodulation responses in treatment-resistant neuropsychiatric conditions. Dr. Williams' work has resulted in an FDA clearance for the world's first non-invasive, rapid-acting neuromodulation approach for treatment-resistant depression. He has published papers in high-impact peer-reviewed journals including Brain, American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Results from his studies have gained widespread attention in journals such as Science and New England Journal of Medicine Journal Watch as well as in the popular press and have been featured in various news sources including Time, Smithsonian, and Newsweek. Dr. Williams received two NARSAD Young Investigator Awards in 2016 and 2018 along with the 2019 Gerald R. Klerman Award. Dr. Williams received the National Institute of Mental Health Biobehavioral Research Award for Innovative New Scientists in 2020.
-
Britt Wray
Instructor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioDr. Wray is the Lead of the Chair’s Special Initiative on Climate and Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of Stanford University School of Medicine. Before this she was a Human and Planetary Health Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Her research focuses on the mental health impacts of climate change on young people ('emerging adults') and frontline community members, psychosocial resilience building, community-minded healing interventions, and public engagement for improved mental wellbeing and planetary health. Dr. Wray has a PhD in Science Communication from the University of Copenhagen and is a journalist, speaker, and author of two books: Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in the Climate Crisis (Knopf 2022, and a finalist for the Governor General's Award), and Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics and Risks of De-Extinction (Greystone Books 2017). She has hosted and produced several science radio programs, podcasts and television programs for international broadcasters including the BBC and CBC, and is a TED speaker. Dr Wray is an advisor to the Climate Mental Health Network (addressing the mental health consequences of climate change through community engagement and by harnessing the power of media and technology), Climate Cares (a mental health research collaboration between the Institute of Global Health Innovation and the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London), and the Good Energy Project (a nonprofit unlocking the power of TV and film to inspire courage in the face of climate change). Dr Wray is a Chicago Council on Global Affairs Next Generation Climate Changemaker. She is also the Creator of Gen Dread (gendread.substack.com), a newsletter about building courage and taking meaningful action on the far side of climate grief.
-
Natalie M. Zahr
Assistant Professor (Research) of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Major Laboratories)
BioNatalie M. Zahr received a graduate education in the basic sciences including the study of neuro- pharmacology, physiology, and anatomy. After completing her graduate training in electrophysiology, she began a postdoctoral fellowship as a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scientist. Her work focuses on translational approaches using in vivo MR imaging and spectroscopy in studies of human with Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD) and in rodent models of alcohol exposure with the goal of identifying mechanisms of alcohol effects on the brain. Her human studies include participants with HIV, those co-morbid for HIV and AUD and recently, aging individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Her position allows her to explore emerging MR technologies and apply them to test relevant hypotheses. Before joining Stanford, she taught at several local institutions including UC Berkeley extension and Santa Clara University where she enjoyed sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm for learning with students.
-
Qingyu Zhao
Instructor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioI am interested in using machine learning and computational approaches to analyze longitudinal and multi-modal MRI to characterize how the white-matter architecture develops during adolescence to support coordinated neural activity for developing higher-order executive functions. My research also extends to characterizing the predisposing and detrimental effects of alcohol and substance use on brain structure and function. My broad interest lies in image analysis and statistical learning for the detection, diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
