Rate My Professor Dean Shibata

Dean Shibata, M.D., is a Professor of Radiology in the Department of Radiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, where he serves as Section Chief of Neuroradiology. He is also Chief of Radiology at UW Medical Center. A board-certified radiologist, Dr. Shibata practices clinically at UW Medicine sites including Harborview Medical Center and UW Medical Center-Montlake. He directs the neuroradiology section, which includes 15 faculty and nine fellows, and contributes to graduate medical education through the neuroradiology fellowship program. Dr. Shibata has submitted multiple teaching cases to the UW Neuroradiology website, including cases on vasogenic edema in a 27-year-old with decreased mental status while hiking, vertigo and sudden bilateral hearing loss in a 47-year-old, and subarachnoid and intraventricular hemorrhage in a 53-year-old.

Dr. Shibata's research focuses on neuroimaging, brain plasticity, vascular brain injury, and MRI findings associated with aging, cardiovascular risk factors, and neurodegenerative diseases. His medical education was at Stanford University Medical Center. Prior to joining the University of Washington faculty in fall 2001 as an assistant professor of radiology, he was on the faculty at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. There, he conducted fMRI studies showing that congenitally deaf individuals activate their auditory cortex when sensing musical vibrations on their hands, demonstrating remarkable brain plasticity. He presented these findings at the 87th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in 2001. At UW, he collaborates with the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center on projects such as estimating Alzheimer's disease progression scores using deep learning on MRI and longitudinal relationships between brain atrophy patterns and mild cognitive impairment. He has co-authored over 100 publications with more than 3,800 citations, including 'Lifestyle Risk Factors and Findings on Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Older Adult American Indians: The Strong Heart Study' (2019), 'Cognitive Correlates of MRI-defined Cerebral Vascular Injury' (2019), 'Small Brain Lesions and Incident Stroke and Mortality' (2015), 'Vascular Risk Factors and Findings on Brain MRI of Elderly American Indians: The Cardiovascular Health Study' (2019), and 'Longitudinal Relationship Between Brain Atrophy Patterns and Progression to Mild Cognitive Impairment' (2024).