Reach out to our team at 352-273-5295 or dnnl@peds.ufl.edu if you are interested in participating in any of the following studies!
Autism Centers of Excellence (ACE)
Our ACE project – Toward Healthy Aging in Adults with Autism: A Longitudinal Clinical and Multimodal Brain Imaging Study
The Toward Healthy Aging in Autism study will investigate differences in health, aging and well-being during adulthood in autistic and neurotypical adults. Aging – growing older – is something we all do. It is important to understand what makes staying healthy when growing older possible for some adults and difficult for other adults. The current study will track physical and mental health, functioning, cognitive ability, and brain structure/function of participants over time. We hope that understanding differences in aging will help improve long-term health and well-being of autistic and other adults.
ASD Motor Function Study
In this study we aim characterize parkinson-like symptoms in autism. Recent advances in neuroimaging and statistical modeling have enabled new approaches to investigating brain network architecture. We will apply structural covariance MRI (scMRI), an emerging technique utilizing standard anatomic MRI scans, as well as functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI), to derive network-level structure-function architecture in the human brain as it relates to neuromotor performance. Correlated regional variance in gray matter density (scMRI) and fcMRI signal will be analyzed in young adults to identify large scale, function critical network architectures that distinguish parkinsonian ASD subphenotypes.
Autism Phenome Project (APP)
The goal of APP is to describe different types of autism and enable more effective targeted treatments for defined subgroups of individuals with autism. Our lab is working with researchers at UC Davis to better understand brain development and mental health, and understand what factors at a young age can predict future health outcomes.
Other Studies
The DNNL is actively engaged in diverse projects, including collaborating with the University of Utah on a pediatric traumatic brain injury (pTBI) study and the International Pediatric Stroke Study (IPSS) with Toronto. Beyond these collaborations, our lab is dedicated to extensive data analysis from current and past initiatives. We utilize AI techniques and sophisticated scMRI analysis to investigate different aspects of neural network structure and development, among other areas.