Graduate Student, Psychiatry
PhD student
Girton
Thesis Title: Growth trajectories of head circumference in typically developing infants and its relationship to autism-related cognition and behaviours
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Simon Baron-Cohen
Ayla Humphrey |
About
I am interested in a wide variety of themes related to the aetiology and development of autism and autism-related traits as well as processes that promote pro-social cognition and behaviour, especially under the umbrella of developmental psychopathology theory. As such, I believe that the study of typically developing infants as well as infants at-risk for autism and other developmental disorders is key to our understanding of the mechanisms behind autism and indeed many fundamentally-human abilities.
For my doctoral dissertation, I have been focusing on the theme of individual differences in brain growth trajectories and their cognitive and behavioural correlates by conducting an accelerated longitudinal study, along with cross-sectional studies, of head circumference size and growth over the infantile and early-childhood period. Along with looking at these differences within autism, I have focused on typically developing infants to explore whether growth rates and brain size patterns often seen in infants who later develop autism but which also occur within the general population are linked to increased frequencies of autism-like behaviours and what implications this may have for our understanding of neural and cognitive development.
For future research, I would like to investigate other developmental trajectories and individual differences which may be promotive to the acquisition and implementation of pro-social behaviours such as empathy, 'altruism', charity, and love. I am a great believer in identifying primary, basic, processes that many take for granted but may be crucial to many positive behaviours, and which may lead us to better understand conditions in which such behaviours are dysfunctional. In this regard, I am interested in the neurobiological processes of stress reactivity, pain and emotion regulation, learning and reward circuitry, and the dopamine and oxytocin systems. Furthermore, the role of the developing organism interacting with their environment and the neurodevelopmental and social-policy based implications that this engenders is one that greatly interests me.
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