Stephen Dager

Stephen R. Dager, M.D. is a Professor of Radiology and Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering and Psychiatry at the University of Washington.  He is interim Director of the University of Washington Autism Center. 

Dr. Dager obtained his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Nebraska and completed his residency training in Psychiatry at the University of Washington.  His primary research focus has been the development and application of imaging techniques to study brain mechanisms involved in neuropsychiatric disorders. 

Dr. Dager directs NIH funded research studying brain metabolic and chemical abnormalities in Panic Disorder, Bipolar Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder in young children.  Dr. Dager and colleagues have developed novel techniques to non-invasively characterize brain pharmacokinetics in children and adults.  As principal investigator of an on going “Neuroimaging of Autism” project he is applying a chemical imaging technique, proton echo-planar spectroscopic imaging (PEPSI), that was developed at the Diagnostic Imaging Science Center, University of Washington (DISC), to longitudinally acquired brain chemical images from children with autism and developmental delays in comparison to typically developing children between 3 and 15 years of age.  Dr. Dager is also UW PI of a collaborative longitudinal imaging study of infants at high risk for autism that is being conducted between, UNC Chapel Hill, Washington University, PENN and the UW.  As a passionate consumer of caffeine in all forms, Dr. Dager also conducts research studying brain mechanisms involved in caffeine addiction.