SFARI

Prevalence and trends in epidemiology of autism
2015-03-25 17:00 - 18:15 UTC | Gerald D. Fischbach Auditorium, 160 5th Avenue, New York, NY, 10010, United States
On 25 March 2015, Maureen Durkin discussed trends in the prevalence of autism and explored some of the reasons underlying the recent rise in autism cases. Her talk was part of the Simons Foundation Autism Research lecture series.
About the Lecture
Once considered an extremely rare childhood mental disorder, autism is now recognized as a common neurodevelopmental disability, affecting more than 1 percent of the population in the U.S. Reasons for the rise in prevalence are not fully understood, but they are likely associated with societal and cultural influences, and the expansion of the concept of autism to a spectrum disorder: autism spectrum disorder.
In this lecture, Maureen Durkin discussed trends in the prevalence of autism, focusing on the role of intellectual disability — both as a co-occurring condition with autism and in terms of using autism as a diagnostic substitute for intellectual disability. She also explored evidence of socioeconomic disparities in access to diagnostic and therapeutic services for autism, the cultural and financial barriers underlying these disparities, and the need to incorporate modern concepts of disability into the epidemiology of autism, placing emphasis not only on primary prevention of impairments but also on enhancement of functioning and social inclusion of people with the disorder.
About the Speaker
Maureen Durkin is an epidemiologist, professor of population health sciences and pediatrics, and Waisman Center investigator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her M.P.H. and Dr.P.H. degrees in epidemiology from Columbia University. She conducts studies on the epidemiology of neurodevelopmental disabilities and is currently principal investigator of the Wisconsin site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network.

Learning to move
2014-12-03 17:00 - 18:15
On 3 December 2014, Karen E. Adolph discussed how infants learn to generate and control their movements by adapting to environmental and social factors.Her talk, which covered ways in which a variety of external factors affect how infants learn to move, was part of SFARI’s Autism: Emerging Concepts lecture series. Adolph explained how infants adaptively learn to move rather than acquiring fixed solutions.
More about the lecture:
Basic motor skills such as looking, reaching and walking do not simply appear as the result of maturation. Rather, infants must learn to move. Learning entails discovering new forms of movements to suit the task at hand and using perceptual information to select and modify movements adaptively.
In this lecture, Karen E. Adolph discussed how infants learn to generate and control their movements by adapting to environmental and social factors. Learning to move involves more than merely lifting the limbs against gravity. Adaptive action requires that movements be constructed, selected and modified in accordance with the constraints and opportunities provided by the physical and social environment. The learning process is geared toward flexibility rather than rote performance: Infants are learning to move rather than acquiring fixed solutions.
Commentator Cole Galloway provided post-lecture commentary that highlighted how mobility and socialization affect the lives of infants with special needs and their families. Galloway is director of the Pediatric Mobility Lab and Design Studio, and professor of physical therapy at the University of Delaware. Galloway began focusing on young children following a postdoctoral fellowship with Esther Thelen. His research focuses on how multiple biological, psychological and environmental factors contribute to the emergence of exploratory behaviors. Current projects focus on advancing the technology and training to assist children in maximizing their daily exploration.
About the speaker:
Karen E. Adolph is professor of psychology at the Center for Neural Science at New York University, as well as a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. She is incoming president of the International Society on Infant Studies and is leading the Databrary.org project to enable open sharing of video data among developmental scientists.
Adolph has pioneered research on motor skill acquisition in infants, in particular on how infants learn to use perceptual and social information to guide actions adaptively. Her research also examines the effects of body growth, exploratory activity, environmental and social supports and culture on perceptual motor learning and development.

Microbiota and the host immune system in autism
2014-10-29 17:00 - 18:15
On 29 October 2014, Dan Littman described how intestinal bacteria affect immune system cell functioning, potentially contributing to systemic inflammation and autism.
His talk was part of SFARI’s Autism: Emerging Concepts lecture series.
About the lecture:
Our immune system is heavily influenced by microbiota — the microbes that reside within us. In the intestine, specific microbes induce pro- or anti-inflammatory white blood cells called lymphocytes that maintain a healthy homeostasis. An imbalance of microbiota can result in dysregulated immune cells that contribute to autoimmunity and autism.
In this lecture, Dan Littman described how intestinal bacteria shape the part of the immune system that prevents invasion by harmful microbes, but they can also contribute to systemic inflammation. The bacteria regulate Th17 cells, which participate in multiple autoimmune diseases. These cells play a key role in the maternal immune activation model of autism. Activation of the pregnant mother’s innate immune response may result in lifelong behavioral defects in the child. Through this lens, Littman discussed implications for preventing or treating autism.
About the speaker:
Dan Littman earned his M.D. and Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, completing a postdoctoral fellowship with Richard Axel at Columbia University. From Columbia, he moved to the University of California, San Francisco, where he was professor of microbiology and immunology. Littman is now the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Professor of Molecular Immunology at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine at New York University and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The social brain: Understanding autism
2014-09-23 17:00 - 18:15
On 23 September, Nancy Kanwisher discussed the functional architecture of the social brain as an avenue for considering which functions are affected and which are preserved in autism.Her talk was part of SFARI’s Autism: Emerging Concepts lecture series.
About the lecture:
Humans are a highly social species, allocating numerous brain regions to distinct aspects of social cognition. These regions and corresponding mental abilities serve as tools for understanding which functions are lost and which are preserved in autism.
Autism is characterized by a highly uneven cognitive profile in which some mental functions are preserved or enhanced, and others are disrupted. An important asset in the search to understand this complex disorder comes from the study of the typical human mind and brain.
In this talk, Nancy Kanwisher considered the functional architecture of the social brain as an avenue for considering which functions are affected and which are preserved in autism.
About the Speaker
Nancy Kanwisher is professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an investigator at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research. After receiving her B.S. and Ph.D. from MIT, Kanwisher served on the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles and Harvard University before returning to MIT in 1997. Kanwisher has received the Troland Research Award, MacVicar Faculty Fellow teaching award and Golden Brain Award. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

New approaches to treating Rett syndrome
2014-04-23 17:00 - 18:15
On 23 April, Gail Mandel presented the complex pathology of Rett syndrome and discussed whether this autism-related disorder would be amenable to gene replacement strategies. Her talk was part of the Simons Foundation Autism Research lecture series. You can watch a complete video recording of the event above.
About the Lecture
A central goal in neuroscience is determining the genetic basis of neurological disorders — from autism to brain tumors. Many of these pathological states result from defects in gene regulatory programs that are fundamental to all cell types but lead to dysfunction specifically within the nervous system. Mandel investigates the basis of this phenomenon and has identified cell-cell interactions between neurons and glia — brain cells that support neurons and help process information — involved in brain development.
Mandel has been able to treat the brain pathology of one autism-related disorder, Rett syndrome, by genetically replacing the defective MeCP2 gene with a good copy of the gene in astrocytes — a type of glia. She is exploring the underlying mechanisms crucial for neuronal signaling.
About the speaker:
Gail Mandel holds a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and did postdoctoral work in biochemistry and molecular biology there and at the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard Medical School. She began her career at Tufts Medical School, where she was one of the first investigators to clone and express mammalian voltage-dependent ion channels. In the department of neurobiology and behavior at Stony Brook University, she identified the protein REST, which is responsible for regulation of sodium channel expression and the acquisition of cellular excitability. These discoveries have helped unlock the mechanisms through which embryonic cell types differentiate specifically into neurons. Mandel is a senior scientist in the Vollum Institute at Oregon Health & Science University. She is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a member of the American Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

An attempt at redefining autism
2014-03-26 17:00 - 18:15
On 26 March, Ami Klin presented data from two studies measuring social adaptive behaviors — highly conserved and early-emerging mechanisms of socialization — in infants and toddlers.His talk is part of SFARI’s Autism: Emerging Concepts lecture series. You can watch a complete video recording of the event above.
About the lecture:
Advances in molecular genetics have implicated a number of genetic variants in autism, yet understanding of how these variants contribute to the disorder is limited. Autism is among the most reliably diagnosed neurodevelopmental disorders, but symptoms used to define autism are likely to be outcomes of disruptions much earlier in development. Klin’s findings might allow researchers to detect underlying characteristics associated with autism before the current average age of diagnosis.
About the speaker:
Ami Klin is Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Professor and director of the division of autism and developmental disabilities at Emory University School of Medicine. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of London and completed clinical and research work at Yale University’s Child Study Center. Until 2010, he directed the autism program at the Yale Child Study Center, and was Harris Professor of Child Psychology and Psychiatry there.
Klin’s primary research focuses on the social mind and brain and on the developmental aspects of autism from infancy through adulthood. He is the author of more than 180 publications in the field of autism and related conditions and the co-editor of Asperger Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorders in Infants and Toddlers, the third edition of the Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders and several special issues of professional journals focused on autism.

Imaging early brain development in autism
2014-02-26 17:00 - 18:15
On 26 February, David Amaral presented evidence supporting the concept that there are different types of altered brain development among children with autism.His talk is part of SFARI’s Autism: Emerging Concepts lecture series. You can watch a complete video recording of the event above.
About the lecture:
Autism clearly involves altered function of the central nervous system, but the neuropathology of the disorder remains controversial. This is due in part to the enormous complexity of the disorder, with many possible causes and biological trajectories. What’s more, few neuroimaging studies involve young children or severely affected individuals. This lack of information is compounded by the fact that findings from magnetic resonance imaging cannot be confirmed and extended to the cellular level because of a lack of postmortem brains.
About the speaker:
David Amaral joined the University of California, Davis, in 1995 as a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and the Center for Neuroscience. He is a staff scientist in the Brain, Mind and Behavior Unit at the California National Primate Research Center. Amaral was named the Beneto Foundation Chair and research director of the MIND Institute in 1998. He received a joint Ph.D. in psychology and neurobiology from the University of Rochester.
Amaral’s research focuses on the neurobiology of social behavior and the development and neuroanatomical organization and plasticity of the primate and human amygdala and hippocampus. Increasingly, his research has been dedicated to understanding the biological basis of autism. As research director of the MIND Institute, Amaral coordinates a comprehensive and multidisciplinary analysis of children with autism, called the Autism Phenome Project, which aims to define biomedical characteristics of different types of autism.
Most recently, Amaral became director of Autism BrainNet, a collaborative effort sponsored by the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative and Autism Speaks. The new project aims to solicit postmortem brain tissue to facilitate autism research.

Infants' grasp of others' intentions
2013-11-06 17:00 - 18:15
On 6 November 2013, Amanda Woodward discussed the origins of children’s social understanding and how this fundamental aspect of cognition has profound implications for early childhood development. The talk is part of SFARI’s Autism: Emerging Concepts lecture series.
Kevin Pelphrey provided post-lecture commentary on how our growing understanding of the origins of children’s social cognition can inform the search for early diagnostic indicators of autism.
You can watch a complete video recording of the event above. Use the comments section below to discuss the lecture and pose follow-up questions.
About the lecture:
Growing evidence shows that in typical development, the ability to carry out actions according to intentions emerges during infancy. Studies over the past few years have shown that this ability develops and changes rapidly during infancy. An infant’s active engagement with the physical and social world is critical for acquiring social skills.
About the speaker:
Amanda Woodward is William S. Gray Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago and director of the university’s Infant Learning and Development Laboratory.
Woodward is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the Association for Psychological Science. She is incoming president of the Cognitive Development Society and serves on the executive board of the International Society on Infant Studies. Woodward has pioneered the study of infant social cognition, particularly infants’ understanding of others’ actions and the relationship between infants’ own actions and their action perception. Her team also investigates infants’ learning from social partners, and cross-cultural variations in early social learning.
About the commentator:
Kevin Pelphrey is Harris Professor at the Yale Child Study Center and director of the Center for Translational Developmental Neuroscience and the Yale Center for Excellence in Autism Research and Treatment. As a SFARI Investigator, his research focuses on the application of cognitive neuroscience and genetics techniques to understanding the systems biology of neurodevelopmental disorders.

Evolving perspectives on autism
2013-09-26 17:00 - 18:15
On 26 September 2013, Catherine Lord and Steven Hyman presented conceptual frameworks for autism diagnosis and research, ranging from genetics to symptomatology, as part of SFARI’s Autism: Emerging Concepts lecture series.
Eric London provided post-lecture commentary, placing the discussion in a clinical context and providing a physician’s perspective.
You can watch a complete video recording of the event above. Use the comments section below to discuss the lecture and pose follow-up questions.
About the lecture:
Tremendous progress has been made in our understanding of autism, with major contributions coming from a variety of research fields, including genetics, neuroscience and psychology. The clinical definition of autism has been revamped with the publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Accordingly, our concept of autism is evolving, which in turn affects the future of autism research and the development of interventions.
About the speakers:
Catherine Lord is director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain, a joint project of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in partnership with New York Collaborates for Autism.
Lord is a licensed clinical psychologist with specialties in diagnosis, social and communication development, and intervention in autism. Renowned for her work in longitudinal studies of social and communicative development in autism, Lord has also contributed to the development of diagnostic instruments for autism that are now used as global research standards.
Steven Hyman is director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, and is Distinguished Service Professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard.
From 1996 to 2001, Hyman served as director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, where he emphasized investment in neuroscience and emerging genetic technologies and initiated a series of large practical clinical trials to inform practice. He is editor of the Annual Review of Neuroscience, president-elect of the Society for Neuroscience, founding president of the International Neuroethics Society and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academies.
About the commentators:
Gerald D. Fischbach is chief scientist and fellow of the Simons Foundation.
Eric London is director of the Autism Treatment Laboratory at the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities.

Antibodies, behavior and cognition
2013-05-30 17:00 - 18:15
On 30 May, Betty Diamond discussed how the immune system can mediate alterations in brain development and play a role in autism, as part of SFARI’s Autism: Emerging Concepts lecture series.
Alan Brown provided a post-lecture commentary and context for Diamond’s work on epidemiological studies of autism and related disorders.
You can watch a complete video recording of the event above. Use the comments section below to discuss the lecture and pose follow-up questions.
About the lecture:
As neutralizers of microbial agents, antibodies are major contributors to immune competence. Occasionally, however, they act as autoantibodies, which bind to a person’s own tissue, triggering autoimmune disease. In adults, the blood-brain barrier protects the brain against autoantibodies, but that barrier is not fully competent in fetuses, allowing maternal antibodies to penetrate the fetal brain and potentially alter its development. This mechanism may contribute to some cases of autism.
About the speaker:
Betty Diamond is head of the Center for Autoimmune and Musculoskeletal Diseases at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York. Her research has focused on the induction and pathogenicity of anti-DNA antibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus. She received the American College of Rheumatology’s Distinguished Investigator Award in 2001, the Lee C. Howley Sr. Prize from the Arthritis Foundation in 2002, and the Recognition Award from the National Association of M.D.-Ph.D. Programs in 2004. Diamond was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2006.
About the commentator:
Alan S. Brown is professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University and director of the Unit in Birth Cohort Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. His research has focused on prenatal exposure to infectious, immunologic, nutritional and toxic factors, and its association with risk of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism. He demonstrated earlier this year that elevated maternal C-reactive protein, an inflammatory biomarker, is related to a significantly increased risk of autism in the child. He is leading large, multi-site national birth cohort studies of prenatal biomarkers, developmental pathways and familial vulnerability based on an archived biobank and nationwide registries in Finland.

New genetic insights into autism
2013-04-25 17:00 - 18:15
On 25 April 2013, Matthew State reviewed the genetic discoveries made over the past several years in autism research and addressed challenges in the path forward — from reliable gene discovery to an actionable understanding of the disorder’s molecular underpinnings.The talk is part of SFARI’s Autism: Emerging Concepts lecture series. You can watch a complete video recording of the event above. Use the comments section below to discuss the lecture and pose follow-up questions.
About the lecture:
The genetics of autism has reached a tipping point. The recent focus on de novo mutations — or genetic variations not passed on from either parent — has led to systematic, highly productive gene discovery efforts. This work has begun to clarify a tremendously heterogeneous genetic architecture as well as to reveal specific genes contributing to social disability syndromes.
About the speaker:
Matthew State received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Stanford University and completed his residency in psychiatry and fellowship in child psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, Neuropsychiatric Institute. He received his Ph.D. in genetics from Yale University and was a faculty member there from 2001 to 2013. He is currently chair of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.
State’s lab has a long-standing interest in the contribution of rare genetic mutations to childhood neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism and Tourette syndrome. He is currently leading a large, multisite, genome-wide study of autism funded by the Simons Foundation and is playing a leadership role in the Tourette International Collaborative for Genetics and the Autism Sequencing Consortium. Among many professional honors, he has been awarded the Ruane Prize for Outstanding Research in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.
