Alecia Dager

Alecia Dager, PhD is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine. She leads neuroimaging studies at the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center, focusing on adolescent neurodevelopment and substance use consequences. Her work integrates multimodal MRI techniques to explore brain changes associated with alcohol and marijuana use.

Education:

• PhD in Experimental Psychology, University of California San Diego (2006)
• BA, University of California San Diego (2000)

Research Interests:

• Adolescent brain development
• Neurobiological impacts of substance use
• Longitudinal MRI analyses of gray matter changes
• Cognitive and neural correlates of addiction

Research Contributions:

• Pioneered studies linking fMRI responses to marijuana/alcohol use in college students
• Documented hippocampal atrophy associated with heavy drinking
• Explored genetic influences on amygdala volumes and alcoholism risk

Lab Affiliations:

• Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center
• Formerly directed the Center for the Translational Neuroscience of Alcoholism at Yale