Development begins before birth: Prenatal research relevant to autism

  • Autism Research
Speaker Catherine Monk, Ph.D.
Columbia University
Date & Time


Location

Gerald D. Fischbach Auditorium
160 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10010 United States

Autism Research

Autism Research lectures bring together scientists and scholars to discuss diverse and important topics related to autism.

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On 30 March 2016, Catherine Monk described her lab’s fetal origins of adult disease (FOAD) studies that focus on women in the perinatal period and fetal and infant neurobehavioral development, including direct studies of the fetus, newborn brain imaging and placental methylation.

Her talk was part of the Simons Foundation Autism Research lecture series.
 

About the Lecture

The burgeoning research field known as the fetal origins of adult disease (FOAD) or the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHAD) demonstrates that maternal distress during pregnancy affects fetal and infant brain–behavior development. This is a ‘third pathway’ for the familial inheritance of psychiatric illness beyond shared genes and the quality of parental care, and one that, if fully understood, could lead to early prevention of developmental risk.

In this lecture, Catherine Monk described her lab’s FOAD studies that focus on women in the perinatal period and fetal and infant neurobehavioral development, including direct studies of the fetus, newborn brain imaging and placental methylation.

Applying the FOAD model to autism research introduces the possibility of identifying perinatal markers for the disorder and may help advance the animal and epidemiological findings showing that prenatal maternal immune activation — often a correlate of distress — is associated with risk for the illness.

About the Speaker

Catherine Monk, Ph.D., holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the Departments of Psychiatry, and Obstetrics & Gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center. Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of her research, she is affiliated with two divisions in psychiatry: behavioral medicine and developmental neuroscience. She is director for research at the Women’s Program, as well as co–director of the Sackler Parent–Infant Project and of the Domestic Violence Initiative. After completing her National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship in the psychobiological sciences at Columbia in 2000, Dr. Monk joined the faculty and established the Perinatal Pathways Laboratory.

Past Lectures

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Leonard Mlodinow, Ph.D.Physicist and Author

Have you ever contemplated the difference between a feeling, a thought and a memory? And how do all these things fit together in making us who we are?

Leonard Mlodinow is a theoretical physicist and best-selling author. In his latest book, “Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking,” he unpacks the role emotions play in our thinking and mental well-being.

Kelsey Martin, director of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) and the foundation’s neuroscience collaborations, has spent much of her career as a neuroscientist seeking to understand better how experiences change brain connectivity to store long-term memories.

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Heather Mefford, M.D., Ph.D.
Full Member, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

David Ledbetter and Joseph Buxbaum discussed whether there are genes for which mutations confer risk specific to autism or whether these genes are really conferring general risk of disrupted brain development. The discussion was moderated by Heather Mefford.

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Federico Bolognani, Stuart Cobb, and Yael Weiss joined a panel to discuss new industry developments on the use of small molecules, gene therapy and antisense oligonucleotides as treatment approaches for autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The panel discussion was moderated by Randall Carpenter.

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