Upcoming Events
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010: Pat Sullivan, MD, FRANZCP
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Genome-wide findings for Autism and Other Psychiatric Disorders"
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010: David Mandell, ScD
University of Pennsylvania
"Outcomes from the Philadelphia Autism Instructional Methods Study: Randomized Trial as Catalyst for Systems Change"
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010: Deborah Thorpe, PT, PhD, PCS
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Aging in Adults with Cerebral Palsy"
Current News
Announcing the 2009-2010 NDRC Postdoctoral Research Fellows in Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Incoming NDRC Post doctorates:
John Anthony Richey, Ph.D., will join the NDRC postdoctoral training program with a doctorate in clinical psychology from Florida State University. Dr. Richey will be examining the neural substrates of social cognition in Williams Syndrome using fMRI, and examining the biological mechanisms of change in neurocognitive intervention for autism and social phobia. Gabriel Dichter, Ph.D. and Jim Bodfish, Ph.D., will serve as co-mentors to Dr. Richey during his post-doctoral training in neurodevelopmental disorders translational research.
Portia McCoy, Ph.D., received her doctorate degree from the University of Alabama, Birmingham. She will continue her postdoctoral research in the Department of Cell & Molecular Biology together with Ben Philpot, Ph.D., Associate Director of the NIH T32 Post Doctoral Research Training program. Her research interests include defining the synaptic deficits underlying a genetic form of Autism in the hopes of developing new therapies while expanding our understanding of the disorder at a molecular level.
Sarah Short earned her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in Biological Psychology with a specialty minor in Neuroscience. Dr. Short will partner with John Gilmore, M.D. and colleagues during her postdoctoral training at UNC. Dr. Short's research efforts will be aimed at characterizing brain development from the prenatal period through early childhood.
Continuing Post doctorates:
John Allen received his Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine in 2007. He begins his second year as a post-doctoral research fellow in the NDRC training program under the direction of Bryan Roth, Ph.D., M.D., in the Department of Pharmacology, studying the neuropharmacology and signal transduction of serotonin receptors. Dr. Allen is testing both existing and new antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs in pre-clinical mouse models of both schizophrenia and the neurodevelopmental disease Coffin-Lowry syndrome. The overall goal of this work is to discover biochemical pathways, essential genetic factors, and behavioral correlates in mice that will predict drug effectiveness for the treatment of both psychosis and cognitive impairments. His research is also actively involved in drug discovery and drug screening for new antipsychotic and antidepressant medicines.
Deb Childress received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is entering her second year in the NDRC post-doctoral training program under the mentorship of Joe Piven, M.D., Director of the Carolina Institute and Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology. Dr. Childress is working on two studies utilizing imaging (sMRI/DTI and fMRI) and behavioral measures. The focus of her work is integrating information from the imaging and behavioral protocols in two studies; one focusing on infant siblings of children with autism and the other examining the broad autism phenotype in parents of children with autism.
Adam Roberts, Ph.D., is pursuing research seeking to understand how sensory experiences leave their trace on the brain. He is entering his second year in the NDRC post-doctoral training program in the Department of Cell and Molecular Physiology under the mentorship of Ben Philpot, Ph.D. Experience-dependent modifications in the brain are essential for establishing proper neural circuits during development as well as for encoding memories throughout life. Deficits in experience-dependent synapse development underlie many neurodevelopmental disorders. By investigating these disorders Dr. Roberts hopes to learn more about fundamental nervous system function, as well as work towards the amelioration/prevention of these disorders.
Articles
In an article published in the prestigious journal Neuron, NDRC postdoctoral fellow Adam Roberts demonstrates that NR3A is an inhibitory regulator of synapse maturation and plasticity during early periods of brain development. This insight may help us understand synapse and memory dysfunctions associated with schizophrenia and a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders. This work was featured as a "Must Read" in Faculty of 1000.
Senior author, Ben Philpot, PhD., publishes study, Ube3a is required for experience-dependent maturation of the neocortex, in June issue of Nature Neuroscience
UNC Scientists publish study, Neuropsychological Profile of Autism and the Broad Autism Phenotype, in the Archives of General Psychiatry
See related articles published by CNN and the News & Observer.
Grants
UNC NDRC Investigator, Dr. Gabriel Dichter, was recently awarded an exploratory grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to investigate the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorders via emotion-modulated psychophysiology. The project is a joint venture with Dr. Stephen Benning at Vanderbilt University.
Autism Speaks has committed $5 million to investigate genetic and environmental risk factors for autism. The money will go to studies at UNC and Drexel University in Philadelphia.
As part of a four site network, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers are exploring whether there is a genetic link to autism. The network, called IBIS (Infant Brain Imaging Study), is studying brain images of infant siblings of children with autism. One Clayton, NC, family holds hope that researchers will find that missing piece to the autism puzzle.