 Investigators
ACE Current
Studies Infants At Risk & Newly Diagnosed Toddlers
Categorization in Children & Adults With Autism
Emotion Processing Language/fMRI
Associated Current Studies
Diffusion Tensor Tracking
Language Processing
Visual Processing
Cognitive Enhancement Therapy
Facial Recognition Intervention
CPEA Studies
Autism Treatment Network
National ACE Sites
 Past Fellowship Grants
Autism Task Force Scientific Abstracts |
PAST Fellowship Grants
The
National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR)
The National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR) is a not-for-profit
organization that was established by parents who were alarmed at the
paucity of funds available for autism research. Currently in its
eleventh year of operation, NAAR has committed well over fourteen
million dollars in grants, worldwide, for the purpose of investigating
"the causes, prevention, effective treatments and, ultimately, cures for
autism spectrum disorders". NAAR Fellowships, and the abstracts
describing the work, were awarded to investigators from the University
of Pittsburgh-Carnegie Mellon Collaborative Program of Excellence in
Autism. This NIH-funded center, as well as those others around the
country that will be featured in future editions of ASQ, may be thought
of as training grounds for future scientists and clinicians in the field
of autism spectrum disorders.
NAAR
POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS
Concept Abstraction and Face Recognition in Individuals with Autism
Dr. Kate Humphreys - mentorship Dr.
Marlene Behrmann Carnegie Mellon University
Studies of visual processing in
people with autism have shown that they have two major
difficulties, one with face recognition and the other with the
ability to process parts of an object together to form a coherent whole.
At the moment, we do not know whether the two types of difficulty are
related to one another-for example, one may cause the other-or whether
they are independent, and that it is mere coincidence that they
co-occur. The overall aim of this studies was to determine the
relationship between those two types of difficulties, as well as to
clarify the exact nature of the problems. The investigators looked at
the brain activity of subjects with autism while they were viewing faces
and complex shapes, to determine what sort of information those
individuals appeared to use to process those kinds of stimuli. The
findings were compared with the results obtained from non-autistic
control subjects to determine the differences exhibited by the
individuals with autism. The results of this investigation will shed
light on the nature and cause of the difficulties in face processing in
autism, thus paving the way for the design of maximally effective
interventions.
The Emergence of Object Processing Deficits in Autism: A Brain Based
Investigation
K.
Suzanne Scherf, PhD - mentorship Dr. Beatrice Luna University of
Pittsburgh
Although poor face recognition is a common feature of autism, very
little is known about the
development of face recognition skills in children with autism. Healthy
children make important developmental transitions in their ability to
integrate information about facial features (e.g. eyes, mouth, nose).
They also develop additional capacities to analyze differences in
feature arrangements during adolescence (e.g. distance between eyes,
nose, mouth). This allows
them to make more difficult discriminations between very similar-looking
individuals. No research has addressed whether adolescents with autism
make this same transition. Furthermore, the existing research in autism
has tried to understand face recognition deficits by evaluating impaired
responses to faces, which also carry an enormous amount of emotional
information that is difficult for autistic individuals to process.
This project studied developmental limitations in autistic individuals'
abilities to 1) detect features in novel objects that are devoid of
emotional or social information, and 2) learn
to integrate the features to analyze differences in their arrangement.
This strategy will simulate the process of learning faces for the first
time and will allow us to isolate the visual perceptual contributions to
face recognition deficits in autism. We will evaluate how limitations in
the use of these perceptual processes relate to existing
face-recognition skills. Because we know that abnormal connectivity
among distant brain regions contributes to deficits in higher-order
cognition in autism, we will investigate the brain basis of the
development of these perceptual processes as well. This study will help
us better understand the specific impaired processes contributing to
face recognition problems in autism so that effective rehabilitation
strategies can be developed to improve face recognition skills.
NAAR
PRE-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS
The Recognition of Emotional Expression by Children and Adults with
Autism
Keiran Rump - mentorship Dr. Mark Strauss, University of Pittsburgh
The ability to recognize the emotional expressions of others as well as
recognizing emotions
in oneself is important for social development. Past research has found
mixed results with respect to the extent to which individuals with
autism have difficulties in recognizing emotional expressions. One
reason for this may be that many past studies have used static pictures
of faces that are very good or prototypical examples of expressions. The
facial expression in these exaggerated examples can be recognized using
strategies that may be very different from strategies used in daily
interactions. In real life, people often need to pick up emotional
expressions even when they are subtle and seen only fleetingly. We plan
to investigate the ability of individuals with autism to recognize
emotional expressions that are more subtle
and complex, and in turn more similar to those often encountered on a
day to day basis. We also plan to examine how individuals with autism
understand emotions in themselves. It is our hope that by gaining
insight into how individuals with autism recognize and evaluate emotion
we will be able to develop more effective interventional strategies.
Categorization and the Abstraction of Concepts in Individuals with
Autism
Holly Gastgeb -
mentorship Dr. Mark Strauss, University of Pittsburgh
Infants
in the first two years of life must learn a tremendous amount of
information about
the world they live in, i.e. they have to come to recognize the faces of
familiar people such as their parents or grandparents and come to know
the differences between male and female faces. They also have to learn
about objects, i.e. even though dogs such as a dachshund and afghan look
very different, they still are members of the same "dog category".
Researchers have discovered that infants readily acquire this
information, probably guided by inborn or innate mechanisms.
But what about individuals born with a developmental disability such as
autism? Our current research sponsored by the National Institutes of
Health and the National Alliance for Autism
Research is focused on the abilities of individuals with autism to
understand this type of information concerning faces and objects. The
initial results of our studies suggest that individuals who have autism
process this type of information differently than others, and hence,
have difficulty recognizing both faces and objects. The results suggest
that autism may impact the basic innate processes that are used by
infants and young children to learn about the world. Rather than coming
to understand general categories of information, individuals with autism
focus on very specific details that interfere with their general
learning processes.
When they do form categories, they tend to do so rotely and differently.
These studies will help us understand what they are doing differently in
terms of organizing information that makes their conclusions about the
world different from those of typical people. Understanding how these
very basic learning abilities differ in children and adults with autism
will be very helpful in designing new teaching and behavior intervention
methods. It will also inform us about the problem solving difficulties
they have that are so limiting in real life.
Integration of Information and Functional Brain Connectivity in Autism
Cibu P. Thomas - mentorship Dr. Marlene
Behrmann, Carnegie Mellon University
One of the classical characteristics of
autistic individuals is the marked inflexibility in their behavior and
interests along with the tendency to focus on the details present in the
input (i.e., local processing), rather than on the whole (i.e., global
processing). The goal of the proposed research project is to establish a
deeper understanding of the fundamental nature of global processing
deficit in individuals with autism in the visual perceptual domain. To
this end, we will employ two experimental paradigms, each thought to
require a slightly different form of perceptual organization and
integration. One will require more local brain connectivity
and local processing, and the other will be more dependent on top-down
(global processing) or longer-range brain connectivity. Both paradigms
will be explored using a combination of behavioral and functional
imaging methods, and comparisons will be made with respect to the
psychological and neural signatures of normal individuals.
The behavioral experiments will focus on examining the evolution of the
underlying processes involved in the integration of local visual
information in order to achieve global coherence (seeing the whole). The
functional imaging studies, on the other hand, will focus on identifying
the neural correlates for global and local visual processing. To
complete the analysis, we will use a relatively new technology called
diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to perform a fine-grained
analysis of the irregularities in white matter volume that individuals
with autism are known to have. DTI will help us to verify if there is a
link between impairments in the global processing abilities of autistic
individuals and abnormalities in their white matter structures or fibers
that connect brain regions. The multi-pronged approach will help forge a
firm understanding of the nature of visual information processing in
individuals with autism and its underlying neural substrate. These
studies will provide a clearer understanding of how children and adults
with autism spectrum disorder think and analyze information. This
understanding is the
key to changing behavior-it it the foundation to the functional analysis
of behavior and successful behavior intervention.
Cure Autism Now (CAN)
YOUNG INVESTIGATORS AWARD
Once annually, Cure Autism Now (CAN)
solicits proposals that advance the state of knowledge in critical areas
of autism, from basic research to clinical.
Their goal is to support outstanding projects that involve innovative
approaches and the application of cutting-edge technologies.
Applications are encouraged both from scientists already focusing on
autism and from those new to the field of autism. All proposals must
have direct and immediate relevance to autism and related disorders.
Scientific disciplines include, but are not limited to, animal models,
biochemistry, cellular physiology, clinical research, developmental
neurobiology, environmental factors, epidemiology, gastroenterology,
genetics, immunology, microbiology, molecular biology, neural
plasticity, neuro-anatomy, neuroimaging, pathology, systems
neuroscience, toxicology, and virology.
To promote rapid progress towards the discovery of effective treatments
and a cure for autism and related disorders, we have, furthermore,
established two funding mechanisms which are reviewed on a rolling
basis: Autism Biomaterials Awards, and Treatment-Related Awards. We
solicit proposals that advance the state of knowledge in critical areas
of autism, from basic research to clinical applications.
Neural Bases of Visuo-spatial Processing in High-Functioning Autism
Rajesh Kumar Kana, PhD - mentorship under
Dr. Marcel Just, Carnegie Mellon University
Research studies have revealed structural
and functional abnormalities in the brain in autism. While these studies
are consistent with the prediction that autism is primarily a disorder
of brain functioning, no single neuro-pathological feature has yet has
been identified unambiguously and no single model of pathophysiology is
currently accepted.
Several research studies have indicated that many individuals with high
functioning autism have superior or intact ability in certain domains of
functioning. For example, many individuals with autism are good visual
thinkers. This study investigated such advantages that high functioning
individuals with autism have by using magnetic resonance imaging
technology to study the integration of various brain regions when
individuals with autism perform problems involving visuospatial
thinking. Using these images, it was possible to detect which areas in
the brain are active during processing of a particular problem.
The results were compared with typical control participants' brain scans
while they
performed the same problems. This research was important because it
provided information about the nature of visual and spatial processing
in autism, and may indicate specific type of processing differences. A
clearer understanding of the way that individuals with autism process
information will lead to the development of enhanced interventions.
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