Radiology Personnel

Stephen Dager, M.D.

Professor
Associate Director, Center on Human Development and Disability


Biography

Stephen R. Dager, M.D. is a Professor of Radiology and Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Utah.  He is a Research Affiliate and Associate Director of the University of Washington Center on Human Development and Disability.  He previously served as Interim Director of the University of Washington Autism Center.

At the national level, Dr. Dager chairs the Department of Defense Congressional-Mandated Medical Research Program’s Vision and Integration panels for autism research (Combating Autism Act), and is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Autism Speaks.  He is on the Editorial Boards of JAMA-Psychiatry and  Autism Research.

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. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. His primary research focus has been the development and application of novel imaging techniques to study brain mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders.

Dr. Dager directs NIH-funded research studying brain structural, metabolic and chemical abnormalities in neuropsychiatric disorders affecting both adults and young children.  As principal investigator of an ongoing “Neuroimaging of Autism” study funded by the NIH during the past 15 years, he is using structural MRI, DTI and a chemical imaging technique, proton echo-planar spectroscopic imaging (PEPSI), that was developed at the University of Washington Diagnostic Imaging Science Center (DISC), to longitudinally investigate brain development in children with autism or developmental delays in comparison to typically developing children between 3 and 15 years of age.  Dr. Dager additionally directs NIH ARRA-R01 research applying 3-D chemical imaging to study brain and white matter development in infants. Dr. Dager is 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, UPenn and the UW. He has directed NIH-funded imaging research investigating brain metabolic mechanisms underlying Panic Disorder and Bipolar Disorder, and the effects of treatment.  Dr. Dager and colleagues have developed techniques to non-invasively characterize brain pharmacokinetics of medications commonly used to treat depression and anxiety in children and adults. As a passionate consumer of caffeine in all forms, Dr. Dager also conducts research studying brain mechanisms involved in caffeine addiction.

Recent Publications (via Semantic Scholar)



Self-report methodology for quantifying standardized cannabis consumption in milligrams delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.
Sarah F Larsen, Allegra J Johnson, M. Larimer, et al. - Published 2023 - THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE

Brain microstructural abnormalities in patients with Wilson’s disease: A systematic review of diffusion tenor imaging studies
A. Karimi, S. Mohammadi, M. Salehi, et al. - Published 2022 - BRAIN IMAGING AND BEHAVIOR

Brain microstructural alterations of depression in Parkinson’s disease: A systematic review of diffusion tensor imaging studies
M. Salehi, S. Mohammadi, Mahdi Gouravani, et al. - Published 2022 - HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING

Correction: Astrocytic water channel aquaporin-4 modulates brain plasticity in both mice and humans: a potential gliogenetic mechanism underlying language-associated learning
J. Woo, J. E. Kim, J. Im, et al. - Published 2021 - MOLECULAR PSYCHIATRY

Correction: Astrocytic water channel aquaporin-4 modulates brain plasticity in both mice and humans: a potential gliogenetic mechanism underlying language-associated learning
J. Woo, J. Kim, J. Im, et al. - Published 2021 - MOLECULAR PSYCHIATRY

Quantitative Assessment of the Intracranial Vasculature of Infants and Adults Using iCafe (Intracranial Artery Feature Extraction)
Li Chen, D. Shaw, S. Dager, et al. - Published 2021 - FRONTIERS IN NEUROLOGY

Racial and geographic variation in effects of maternal education and neighborhood-level measures of socioeconomic status on gestational age at birth: Findings from the ECHO cohorts.
A. Dunlop, Alicynne Glazier Essalmi, Lyndsay Alvalos, et al. - Published 2021 - PLOS ONE

Sleep Onset Problems and Subcortical Development in Infants Later Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Katherine E. MacDuffie, M. Shen, S. Dager, et al. - Published 2020 - THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY

Characterizing Olfactory Function in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Children with Sensory Processing Dysfunction
Julia Sweigert, T. St John, K. Begay, et al. - Published 2020 - BRAIN SCIENCES

Corrigendum: Joint Attention and Brain Functional Connectivity in Infants and Toddlers.
A. Eggebrecht, J. Elison, E. Feczko, et al. - Published 2020 - CEREBRAL CORTEX