Psychiatry Grand Rounds: "GABAergic Neurophysiology and Socio-communicative Abilities in High-Functioning Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder"

Dr. Lawrence Fung is a physician-scientist specializing in molecular neuroimaging and neuropsychopharmacology in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurogenetic syndromes. He is currently an Instructor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, where he serves as an attending psychiatrist in the Autism & Developmental Disabilities Clinic and the Pediatric Neuropsychopharmacology Clinic. Supported by the NIMH through a Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award, Dr. Fung serves as the PI of a novel multimodal neuroimaging study titled "GABAergic Neurophysiology in Autism Spectrum Disorder." In this study, he employs a hybrid neuroimaging system to simultaneously acquire GABAA receptor densities and GABA levels in high-functioning adults with ASD. In addition to neuroimaging studies, he is interested in elucidating the role of neurosteroids in ASD. Dr. Fung received his Bachelor of Science at University of California at Berkeley, Master of Science in Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, and PhD in Chemical Engineering at Cornell University. He worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a pharmacokineticist and drug metabolism specialist for 7 years before embarking on his training in medicine, psychiatry, and neuroscience. Dr. Fung obtained his MD from George Washington University and completed his psychiatry residency, CAP fellowship, and postdoctoral research fellowship in neuroimaging at Stanford University.