Center for Autism and Related Disorders

Neural Representation of Hedonic Valence During Narrative Listening

Abstract Hedonic valence, the intrinsic pleasantness or unpleasantness of an experience, is fundamental to human psychological functioning. Yet, how valence is represented in the brain remains an open question. Functional MRI studies have demonstrated that the brain encodes both...

Caught between silence and truth: Graduate trainees' disclosures of microaggressions

Graduate training in school, clinical, and counseling psychology programs is often shaped by structural inequities that can harm racially minoritized trainees. Guided by Critical Race Theory, this qualitative study used counterstorytelling to explore how 10 racially minoritized g...

Beyond deliberation: Why we need affect for ecological democracy

In the context of growing affective polarization, climate backlash and emotionally charged climate mobilizations, this article argues that theorists of environmental democracy must take affect and emotions seriously. Drawing on early feminist and ecofeminist critiques of delibera...

Appraising familial prediction of proband outcomes in neurogenetic disorders

Abstract Background Gene dosage disorders impact cognition and psychopathology, but outcomes vary widely amongst carriers of the same variant. Recent work has sought to better predict proband outcomes using measures of corresponding traits in family members. However, family-based...

Cunermuspir, a Copper(I)–Niacin Complex, Modulates Mitochondrial Respiration and Cellular Oxidant Handling in Fibroblasts from Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Copper is a redox-active transition metal that is essential for the assembly and catalytic function of cytochrome c oxidase (Complex IV), the terminal enzyme of the mitochondrial electron transport chain and a principal site of physiological oxygen reduction. Elevated Complex IV...

It Is Literally Saving Me Spoons: Autistic People’s Experiences of Eating and Feeding Disorders—A Photovoice Study

Background: Despite the high prevalence of eating disorders (EDs) in Autistic people, few qualitative studies explore this overlap beyond Autistic women with anorexia nervosa (AN). Methods: We used Photovoice to explore the experiences of Autistic people with EDs across diverse g...

Prenatal maternal infection promotes maternal microchimeric cells to alter infection risk in male offspring

Summary Vertically transferred maternal cells or maternal microchimeric cells (MMCs) engraft the fetus and persist in offspring for long periods of time. How altered maternal immune states arising from infection affect MMCs and their function in offspring is poorly understood. He...

An axon-intrinsic loop restricts nerve regeneration through axonal protein synthesis

ABSTRACT Injured axons synthesize the RNA Binding Protein KHSRP that promotes mRNA decay and slows nerve regeneration. Axotomy-induced increase in axoplasmic Ca 2+ activates axonal Khsrp translation, and while Ca 2+ returns to pre-injury levels within 16 hours post-axotomy, axona...

Addressing Common Problems in Autism Research: Cohort Development and Sample Description for a Participatory, Real-World, Longitudinal Study of Outcomes in Autistic Adults

Adult autism services research is plagued by methodological challenges, including difficulty obtaining representative or heterogeneous samples and a frequent mismatch between experimental methodologies and real-world settings. The Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research...

Human‐operant evaluation of synthesized alternative reinforcement and resurgence

Basic research suggests that differential reinforcement with synthesized alternative reinforcement (i.e., delivery of two or more qualitatively different reinforcers contingent on a single alternative response) increases resurgence during disruptions to the contingency. We evalua...

Understanding the Impact of Living Situation and Social Satisfaction on Depression and Substance Use in Autistic Young Adults Without Intellectual Disability

Background: Autistic young adults face elevated risks for depression, and emerging evidence indicates that some engage in substance use. Residential status and social satisfaction may be related to these outcomes, yet little research has examined their interplay in autistic popul...

Early sleep and sensory over-responsivity relate to insular functional connectivity with sensorimotor cortices and cerebellum in infants at varying likelihood for autism

Abstract Sleep problems and sensory over-responsivity (SOR) are common, co-occurring, and early emerging features of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Yet, the early neural mechanisms underlying these symptoms remain unclear. Here, we used resting-state fMRI data from the Infant Br...

Intact Visual Correlation Detection in Autistic Adults

The ability to detect recurring temporal co-occurrence, or temporal correlation, of sensory events is fundamental for organizing perceptual input into coherent representations. Although past work has revealed differences across several aspects of temporal processing in autism, it...