Maternal immune activation (MIA) via infection during pregnancy is known to increase risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it is unclear how MIA disrupts fetal brain gene expression in ways that may explain this increased risk. Here we …
BACKGROUND: Interventions that promote mindfulness consistently show salutary effects on cognition and emotional wellbeing in adults, and more recently, in children and adolescents. However, we lack understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms …
Importance: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is 2 to 5 times more common in male individuals than in female individuals. While the male preponderant prevalence of ASD might partially be explained by sex differences in clinical symptoms, etiological …
In 2003, we proposed the hypersystemizing theory of autism. The theory proposes that the human mind possesses a systemizing mechanism (SM) that helps identify lawful regularities (often causal) that govern the input-operation-output workings of a …
BACKGROUND: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are etiologically heterogeneous and complex. Functional genomics work has begun to identify a diverse array of dysregulated transcriptomic programs (e.g., synaptic, immune, cell cycle, DNA damage, WNT …
The male preponderance in autism prevalence has brought together the disparate topics of sex/gender and autism research. Two directions of neuroimaging studies on the relationships between sex/gender and autism may inform male-specific risk …
BACKGROUND: Fine motor skill impairments are common in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), significantly affecting quality of life. Sensory inputs reaching the primary motor cortex (M1) from the somatosensory cortex (S1) are likely involved in fine motor …
Atypical cortical organization and reduced integrity of the gray-white matter boundary have been reported by postmortem studies in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, there are no in vivo studies that examine these particular …
Oxytocin may influence various human behaviors and the connectivity across subcortical and cortical networks. Previous oxytocin studies are male biased and often constrained by task-based inferences. Here, we investigate the impact of oxytocin on …
In recent years the field of fMRI research has enjoyed expanded technical abilities related to resolution, as well as use across many fields of brain research. At the same time, the field has also dealt with uncertainty related to many known and …