Researcher |Research Overview
My research interests and expertise include constructing and applying novel neuroimaging methods to understand brain development, with a focus on cognitive, neuropsychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disorders, i.e., disorders that affect wide-ranging networks in the brain.
Presently, I am focusing on three areas of investigation that I believe are critical to translating neuroimaging discoveries into effective treatments and interventions for problematic symptoms in autism spectrum disorders: 1) Improving handling of motion-containing MRI data from pediatric clinical populations, 2) Studying other accessible clinical populations with similar symptom burdens to neurodevelopmental disorders to help localize the neuroanatomical basis of specific symptoms in children, and 3) Generating and improving large-scale clinical databases of neurodevelopmental disorder patients with neuroimaging data for hypothesis testing.
Researcher |Research Background
I am a physician-scientist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. I received his B.A. in Biology and Biomedical Physics from Washington University in St. Louis and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis where I focused on neuroimaging research, and then yet on to complete residency training in pediatrics and child neurology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and both a clinical fellowship in pediatric behavioral neurology and a T32 postdoctoral research fellowship in translational research in neurodevelopmental disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital.
My current research focuses on identifying brain circuits that are involved in the generation of specific symptoms seen in autism spectrum disorder using network neuroimaging techniques, validating these insights with prospective fMRI studies, and trying to alter these brain circuits with non-invasive neuromodulation such as TMS and real-time fMRI neurofeedback.
I also continue to care for patients in the Autism Spectrum Center and Behavioral Neurology Clinic as part of the new multidisciplinary Brain, Mind, and Behavior Center at Boston Children’s Hospital.