Pamela Ventola, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Yale University

SFARI Investigator Website

Pamela Ventola is a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the Yale Child Study Center. Her clinical work and research program focus on behavioral treatment for ASD, specifically Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT). She currently has several studies investigating both neural-systems level and behavioral outcomes of PRT. Specifically, she is collaborating with Fred Shic (University of Washington) on a SFARI-funded study examining concurrent and predictive relationships between eye tracking and clinical outcome during a 16-week PRT trial, and she is conducting a project on sex-based differences in ASD treatment response. For the current project, she will collaborate with Kevin Pelphrey and Shic to assess the effects of oxytocin as an enhancer of response to PRT using behavioral outcomes, eye tracking and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).

Funded Projects

Measuring selectivity of oxytocin to enhance response to Pivotal Response Treatment in individuals with autism

Awarded: 2017
Award Type: Research

Tracking intervention effects with eye-tracking

Awarded: 2015
Award Type: Targeted: Novel Outcome Measures for ASD Clinical Trials

The Simons Simplex Collection

Awarded: 2006
Award Type: Simons Simplex Collection

SFARI Funded Publications

ASD modelling in organoids reveals imbalance of excitatory cortical neuron subtypes during early neurogenesis. Jourdon A., Wu F., Mariani J., Capauto D., Norton S., Tomasini L., Amiri A., Suvakov M., Schreiner J., Jang Y., Nguyen C.K., Cummings E.M., Han G., Powell K., Szekely A., McPartland J. C., Pelphrey K., Chawarska K., Ventola P., Abyzov A., Vaccarino F.

Altered neural connectivity in females, but not males with autism: Preliminary evidence for the female protective effect from a quality-controlled diffusion tensor imaging study. Lei J., Lecarie E., Jurayj J., Boland S., Sukhodolsky D., Ventola P., Pelphrey K., Jou R. J.

Adaptive behavior in autism: Minimal clinically important differences on the Vineland-II Chatham C.H., Taylor K.I., Charman T., Liogier D'ardhuy X., Eule E., Fedele A., Hardan A., Loth E., Murtagh L., Del Valle Rubido M., San Jose Caceres A., Sevigny J., Sikich L., Green Snyder L., Tillmann J.E., Ventola P., Walton-Bowen K., Wang P., Willgoss T., Bolognani F.