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My overarching long-term research goal is to study how brain development is affected by experience and how brain-environment interactions differ in cases such as epilepsy, autism, or neural injury. I am particularly interested in how interventions for pediatric neurological disorders can leverage plastic mechanisms of development to improve cognitive/functional outcomes, particularly in the domains of sensation (e.g., vision) and attention.
Below are summaries of my current and ongoing projects:
Plasticity following pediatric epilepsy surgery
How resilient is the developing brain? What are the constraints on the organization of cortical topography over the course of development?
Patients who undergo cortical resection for the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy are cases that test the plasticity of the developing brain under the most extreme constraints. My primary research investigates how, following childhood resection, preserved cortex is—or is not—altered from its typical developmental trajectory. This research also explores whether preserved cortex can subserve maintenance of cognitive behaviors in the postoperative period.
Functional outcomes of pediatric epilepsy surgery
Epilepsy surgery is a known effective treatment for reducing seizure burden in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. However, notably less is known about non-seizure outcomes following cortical resection. In partnership with the Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery Alliance, I am studying how pediatric hemispheric surgery affects postoperative visual, auditory, motor, endocrine, and cognitive function. Importantly, I am also investigating whether these functional outcomes can be predicted by variables such as age at seizure onset, age at surgery, or etiology of the underlying disease process. Answering these questions is critical to guide pre- and postoperative counseling to families and to determine what clinical symptoms to monitor in the postoperative period.
Imbalance of excitatory-inhbitory homeostasis in autism spectrum disorder
Another arm of my research seeks to elucidate why individuals with autism spectrum disorder exhibit hypersensitivity to environmental stimuli. I have hypothesized that elevated locus coeruleus activity (known to regulate attention to select features of sensory stimuli) might limit narrowing of attention in autism. I have employed pupillometry (a method for inferring LC activity) to test this hypothesis and to determine the effects of chronically elevated locus coerulus activity on autism symptomatology.
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