Our laboratory studies brain/behavior relationships in children. We focus on genetic and medical conditions that disrupt glutamate and GABA receptor function, and are associated with early learning, cognitive and motor impairment. Our work is translational, and integrates goals from the fields of cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, and neurobiology. The range of conditions that we study is intentionally broad. For example, the conditions may be genetic, as in the case of children with the 22q11 deletion syndrome; or they may be environmentally-based conditions exacerbated by genetic vulnerability, as in the case of lead exposure. By studying diverse disorders with a shared neuropathologic mechanism, we hope to develop a unified model of how mental function is altered over time by neuroexcitotoxic damage in particular brain pathways. We augment this work with studies that explore associations between attention, inhibition, and working memory, in children with and without idiopathic learning disabilities.
Articles
Sex differences in children with the 22q11 deletion syndrome (with Karen Kiley Brabeck, Samantha Hadley Monk, and Jananne Khuri), Psychiatry Research (2008)
High rates of psychiatric impairment in adults with 22q11DS suggest that behavioral trajectories of children...
Olfactory Disorder in Children with the 22q11 Deletion Syndrome (with Karen Kiley-Brabeck, Kathryn Dale, Samantha Hadley Monk, Jananne Khuri, and Maria Karayiorgou), Pediatrics (2006)
OBJECTIVE. 22q11 deletion syndrome, a common human interstitial deletion syndrome
(1:5000), is associated with...
Neuromotor deficits in children with the 22q11 deletion syndrome (with Samantha H. Monk, Karen Kiley-Brabeck, and Jananne Khuri), Movement Disorders (2006)
The 22q11 chromosomal deletion syndrome (22q11DS) is associated with a heterogeneous physical phenotype, neurocognitive deficits,...
Associations between prepulse inhibiton and visual executive attention in children with the 22q11 deletion syndrome (with Karen Kiley-Brabeck and Maria Karayiorgou), Molecular Psychiatry (2005)
The 22q11 deletion syndrome (DS) results in the loss of approximately 30 gene copies and...
Lower pre-pulse inhibition in children with the 22q11 deletion syndrome (with Karen Kiley-Brabeck and Maria Karayiorgou), American Journal of Psychiatry (2005)
Objective: The 22q11 deletion syndrome
is associated with a range of possible physical
...