Research Interests:  Autism Spectrum Disorders

The overall goal of my research is to identify quantitative endophenotypes of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and computational methods. Autism strikes at least 2 out of every 1000 children and is currently the most common pervasive developmental disorder, conferring great fiscal, personal, and societal cost. Diagnostic criteria for ASD include, but are not limited to, qualitative impairments in imaginative play, and/or social interaction. Currently, the best indicators of ASD are behaviorally based and rely on the subjective categorical assessment of a trained clinician; the results of these assessments have been good enough to identify ASD categorically, but fail to objectively quantify ASD symptoms. Identification of genetic loci involved in ASD will be critical for developing the relevant animal models for studying the molecular and cellular physiology underlying the cognitive and behavioral abnormalities observed in individuals with ASD. Towards this goal, I am using fMRI as a physiological measure of neural activity in humans, and computational methods to characterize global patterns of neural activity, the combination of which will be used to objectively measure quantifiable endophenotypes for future genetic analyses.