Linda Chao, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Chao obtained her BS in Biological Science from the University of California, Davis in 1991, and she completed her PhD studies in Neuroscience from UCD in 1996. For the past 11-years, she has served as leader for the Psychiatry Block of the Interdepartmental Studies course 104, Brain, Mind and Behavior for first-year medical students.
Dr. Chao’s professional activities primarily consist of conducting basic research using neuropsychological and imaging techniques to characterize how normal aging, neurodegenerative processes, stress, and exposure to neurotoxins affect the brain and cognition. She has an ongoing project, funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs, that seeks to use cognitive tests, structural, and diffusion tensor imaging to examine the effects of low-level exposure to sarin on brain structure and brain function in Gulf War Veterans. Dr. Chao has another project that is funded by the US Army Military Operational Medicine Research Program. The purpose of this project is to investigate the links between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and dementia.
Dr. Chao serves as an Academic Editor for PlosOne and she has previously served as a reviewer for 26 scientific journals. Dr. Chao has 25 published articles and she has written 58 abstracts, 44 peer-reviewed articles, and 5 significant publications resulting from her research.
Expertise:
Neuroscience
Specialty:
Brain, neurodegenerative process, neuropsychological and imaging techniques
Professional Interests:
Cognitive neuroscience, memory, attention, aging, neurodegenerative disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, magnetic resonance imaging, spectroscopic imaging, functional magnetic resonance imaging
Education and Training:
• Bachelor of Science: University of California, Davis - Biological Science
• Doctor of Philosophy: University of California, Davis - Neuroscience