Nancy Minshew

Nancy Minshew is a Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Pittsburgh. She directs the Center of Excellence in Autism Research and is an internationally known expert in the cognitive, neurological, and genetic bases of autism. Minshew was trained as a behavioral child neurologist, and she received an M.D. from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Underconnectivity hypothesis

Main article: Autism#Underconnectivity hypothesis

Minshew and colleague Marcel Just are best known for the underconnectivity hypothesis of autism, which posits that autism is marked by underfunctioning high-level neural connections and synchronization, along with an excess of low-level processes.^[1] Evidence for this theory has been found in functional neuroimaging studies on autistic individuals^[2] and by a brain wave study that suggested that adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have local overconnectivity in the cortex and weak functional connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of the cortex.^[3]

References

1. ^ Just MA, Cherkassky VL, Keller TA, Kana RK, Minshew NJ (2007). "Functional and anatomical cortical underconnectivity in autism: evidence from an FMRI study of an executive function task and corpus callosum morphometry". Cereb Cortex 17 (4): 951–61. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl006. PMID 16772313. http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/17/4/951. 
2. ^ Williams DL, Goldstein G, Minshew NJ (2006). "Neuropsychologic functioning in children with autism: further evidence for disordered complex information-processing". Child Neuropsychol 12 (4–5): 279–98. doi:10.1080/09297040600681190. PMC 1803025. PMID 16911973. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1803025. 
3. ^ Murias M, Webb SJ, Greenson J, Dawson G (2007). "Resting state cortical connectivity reflected in EEG coherence in individuals with autism". Biol Psychiatry 62 (3): 270–3. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2006.11.012. PMC 2001237. PMID 17336944. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=2001237. 

External links

• Nancy Minshew's Biography
• University of Pittsburgh Center for Excellence in Autism Research (CeFAR)
• Minshew counters autism fallacy

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