Understanding Eye-contact Avoidance in People With Autism

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty looking others in the eyes. This is typically interpreted as a sign of social and personal indifference, but self-reports from people with autism suggests otherwise. Many say that looking others in the eye is uncomfortable or s...

Xue-Jun (June) Kong

Xue-Jun (June) Kong, M.D. Principal Investigator and Director of Synapse Autism program at Martinos Center/Mass General Hospital, Principal Investigator and Attending Physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Assistant Professor of Harvard Medical School. She leads her Autism research te...

Nouchine Hadjikhani

Nouchine Hadjikhani, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, where she directs the Neurolimbic Research Laboratory. She is also an Assistant in Neurosciences at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a visiting professor at GNC, Gothenburg University, Sweden. Sh...

Jacob Hooker

Jacob Hooker, PhD, is currently Lurie Family Professor of Radiology in the Field of Autism Research and a Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport MGH Research Scholar. Dr. Hooker also serves as Scientific Director of the Lurie Center for Autism, as editor-in-chief for ACS Chemical Neuroscience and has...

Nicole Zurcher Wimmer

Nicole Zürcher, PhD, is currently Assistant Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, a faculty member at the Martinos Center and the Director of Human Imaging in the Chemical Neuroscience Program. She has a background in biology, behavioral and social n...

Maria Mody

Maria Mody, PhD, is a cognitive neuroscientist specializing in neuroimaging of communication abilities in children and adults, with a focus on autism and dyslexia.The goal of her research is to identify core behaviors in developmental disorders of speech and language and the underlying neural mec...

Sheraz Khan

Dr. Sheraz Khan is an Instructor (Research Faculty) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has developed novel signal processing methods for understanding neural underpinnings of autism. His publications, including Khan ...

Chieh-En (Jane) Tseng

I am an Instructor in Radiology with expertise in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET). My PhD focused on using structural, diffusion, and functional MRI to study cognitive functions and related neuroanatomy in very preterm born adults. I completed my postdoctor...

Publications Updates

May 11, 2020 The presubiculum links incipient amyloid and tau pathology to memory function in older persons Jacobs HIL, Augustinack JC, Schultz AP, Hanseeuw BJ, Locascio J, Amariglio RE, Papp KV, Rentz DM, Sperling RA, Johnson KA. Neurology. 2020 May 5;94(18):e1916-e1928. doi: 10.1212/WNL.00...

Early Screening of ASD With a New Eye-tracking Paradigm

Studies have shown that early diagnosis and intervention significantly impact the prognosis of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD): the earlier the detection and diagnosis, the better the prognosis and functional status later in life. Currently, the average age of diagnosis is approxi...

Dara Manoach

Dr. Manoach is a clinically licensed neuropsychologist and an experimental psychologist by training. She has dedicated her career to understanding the neural basis and nature of fundamental cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia and autism. Although sleep pla...

Kestas Kveraga

Dr. Kveraga is a cognitive neuroscientist who studies the neural mechanisms of threat perception from naturalistic stimuli, with strong interests in visual pathway function and autism. He is also interested in neural aesthetics and how brain activity can be employed to predict and shape architect...

TRANSLATE (Translational Research in Radiology)

The TRANSLATE seminar series offers conversations about the latest advances in translational research in radiology, and about the process of translational research itself. Each seminar brings together a physician with particular clinical needs and a researcher developing imaging technologies that...

Seppo Ahlfors

Dr. Ahlfor's research focuses on non-invasive neuroimaging --- in particular, the analysis and interpretation of magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals. He has developed methodologies for multimodal integration of MEG, electroencephalography (EEG) and structural and functional magnetic resonance im...