The transitional period between adolescence and adulthood is a high-risk period for social strain and adversity leading to experiences of violence and altered normative civic beliefs. In this dissertation, I examine cognitive ...

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder marked by social and behavioral deficits, including pronounced inflexibility. Behavioral interventions often fail to generalize, possibly due to difficulties ...

Synucleinopathies are one of the most progressive age-related neurodegenerative family of disorders in the world, affecting millions of individuals worldwide. Debilitating cardinal motor symptoms in patients can present ...

Neurogenesis is a tightly controlled developmental process through which neural progenitor cells progress to committed neurons. While the SoxB1 transcription factors are well characterized to have functions in the induction ...

Speech error monitoring (SEM) is critical for effective communication, and is especially important in aphasia, a language impairment commonly caused by stroke. The present dissertation employs three studies to investigate ...

The neuroanatomical differences associated with the developmental disorder attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or the learning disabilities (LDs) dyslexia (or reading disability, RD) or dyscalculia (or math ...

The goal of this dissertation was to find converging evidence from behavioral and neuroimaging analyses of the mechanisms of orthographic integration with general language processes. By examining orthography effects, covert ...

Cerebral creatine deficiency syndrome (CCDS) is an inborn error of metabolism characterized by intellectual delays, seizures, and autistic-like behavior. Exactly how endogenously synthesized creatine regulates central ...

The auditory cortical system, like the visual cortical system, is thought to be organized into a dual-stream architecture consisting of an anterior ventral and a posterior dorsal stream. Under this framework, the anterior ...

Perceiving and responding to the emotions of other individuals is thought to motivate adaptive social behaviors and help form strong interpersonal connections. Failure or manipulation of the empathic processes that subserve ...