Brain Imaging Expert Recruited to Study Autism at The Children's Hospital of Ph...( - Dr. Robert Schultz Investigates ...),Health

- Dr. Robert Schultz Investigates the "Social Brain" in Children with

Autism -

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An internationally prominent expert in brain function in children and young adults with autism, Robert T. Schultz, Ph.D., is joining the autism research program at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on Oct. 1.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20071001/DCM033 )

Most recently the director of the Yale Developmental Neuroimaging Program at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, Conn., Dr. Schultz, a neuropsychologist, will hold The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Regional Autism Center Endowed Chair.

"Dr. Schultz has performed groundbreaking research into brain regions involved in social interactions, a central issue for people with autism," said Susan E. Levy, M.D., director of the Regional Autism Center at Children's Hospital. "We are excited that he will be adding his expertise to our autism program."

Since joining the Child Study Center at Yale University in 1991, Dr. Schultz has used neuroimaging techniques to investigate autism and other childhood psychological disorders, under an extensive series of grants from the National Institutes of Health and private organizations. His research uses neuroimaging to measure brain structure and brain function, in order to reveal the underlying neural systems causing autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).

Much of Dr. Schultz's work has employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures activity in various brain regions during specific tasks. He has demonstrated that people with ASD have different patterns of brain activity when seeing faces, compared to people without those disorders.

In one notable imaging study, Dr. Schultz showed that the area of the brain that normally shows strong activity when a pe
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