In the News

Michelle Failla, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow in Carissa Cascio's lab, was one of two postdocs selected to present her research at the Postdoctoral Association & Shared Resources Symposium in late April.  Failla used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as a ‘communication independent’ tool to measure pain responses and found that individuals with ASD seem to register pain in a similar manner as individuals without ASD.

Carissa Cascio, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, was one of several co-authors whose paper was recently published in the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders. The paper, "A functional neuroimaging study of fusiform response to restricted interests in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder," can be found in the April 2016 edition of the journal. View the paper on BioMed Central.

Neil Woodward, Ph.D., and Carissa Cascio, Ph.D., Assistant Professors of Psychiatry, served as co-authors on a paper titled "Brain structure in autism: a voxel-based morphometry analysis of the Autism Brain Imaging Database Exchange (ABIDE)," published in the March 2016 issue of the journal Brain Imaging Behavior.

Carissa Cascio, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, and her lab members recently had one of their posters covered by Spectrum News (a press outlet associated with the Simons Foundation for Research) during the group's participation on the 2015 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Chicago recently.

Reduced sounds, brighter lights, and an opportunity to learn about the show ahead of time make plays a more pleasant experience for those with autism. But the most important thing is a non-judgmental environment. Blythe Corbett, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, is mentioned for her research on the effects of a theater-based form of therapy for children with autism.

Carissa Cascio, Ph.D., assistant professor of Psychiatry, recently presented as part of the New York University Child Study Center Grand Rounds Lecture Series. In addition, Cascio was invited to speak as a guest on the Child Study Center's "About Our Kids" radio show on its "Doctor Radio" Sirius XM radio station. Click here to learn more about the "About Our Kids" radio show.  Click here to learn more about Dr. Cascio's research.  

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a $1.8 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to join the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. The Vanderbilt ADDM network team includes Richard Epstein, Ph.D. M.P.H., as director of epidemiology for vulnerable populations. The project will be led by Zachary Warren, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorder (VKC TRIAD).

A recent study conducted by Carissa Cascio, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, was named as an "article of special interest" in a review by Janet Lainhart titled "Brain imaging research in autism spectrum disorders: in search of neuropathology and health across the lifespan." The review is published in the March 2015 issue of Current Opinion in Psychiatry. Among Lainhart's sources was Cascio's paper "Affective neural response to restricted interests in autism spectrum disorders." This artic

Brain scans confirm significant differences in play behavior, brain activation patterns and stress levels in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as compared with typically developing children. In a first-of-its-kind study, Associate Professor of Psychiatry Blythe Corbett, Ph.D., and colleague Kale Edmiston examined social play exchanges on multiple levels, revealing associations among brain regions, behavior and arousal in children with ASD. The results were released in the journal Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience.

The Autism Treatment Network on Physical Health (AIR-P) recently awarded one of three research grants to Kevin Sanders, M.D., assistant professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and medical director of the Treatment & Research Institute on Autism Spectrum Disorders (TRIAD) and the Fragile X Treatment Research Program.