Lab News












April 2021
Laura's Master's thesis has been published in Neuroscience.
February 2021
Laura is featured as an AU Changemaker - see her profile here!
November 2020
Marissa successfully defended her Master's thesis "Shared grey matter correlates of reading and attention"! Well done, Marissa!
October 2020
Our work was discussed in an article on the cerebellum in The Atlantic
August 2020
Laura successfully defended her Master's thesis, entitled "Differential modulation of motor and non-motor networks with cerebellar tDCS". Congrats, Laura!
July 2020
Laura's functional connectivity analysis is part of a new publication in Nature Neuroscience with our collaborator Peter Tsai at UT Southwestern. We highlight a difference in functional connectivity between the cerebellum and the medial prefrontal cortex in autism.
July 2020
We contributed to the newly-published consensus paper on the role of the cerebellum in social cognition, organized by Frank Van Overwalle.
June 2020
Laura "presented" her poster entitled "The cerebellum modulates the acquisition of social information in autism" at the 2020 International Society for Autism Research meeting. Her work was highlighted in the Spectrum newsletter. Well done, Laura!
June 2020
Our collaborator Peter Tsai is featured in this video on how the cerebellum is linked to autism.
May 2020
Congrats to our Lab Graduates! We wish all the best to Alicia, Hayli, and Alyssa. All three graduated with a B.S. in Neuroscience. We will miss you!
April 2020
Hayli, Marissa, and Laura all presented at the virtual Robyn Mathias Student Research Conference! Marissa and Hayli were both recognized for their outstanding poster presentations.
February 2020
Catherine was honored to be recognized with the Provost's Award for Outstanding Faculty Mentorship in Undergraduate Research.
November 2019
Our new paper with Lauren McGrath has been published in the Journal of Neurodevelopmental disorders. We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the potential overlapping neural correlates of dyslexia and ADHD.
October 2019
We had a busy SfN 2019! Marissa presented a poster on our collaborative work with Dr. Lauren McGrath at the University of Denver. Catherine gave a talk at an NIMH-sponsored satellite event and spoke in a sympoisum in honor of Professor Masao Ito at the main SfN meeting. It was an exciting meeting for cerebellar work, from cells to systems!
August 2019
Our DoD submission with Peter Tsai at UT Southwestern has been awarded! We are excited to continue our work investigating the role of the cerebellum in autism.
July 2019
Catherine gave an invited talk at the Cerebellum Gordon Research Conference in Les Diablerets, Switzerland.
June 2019
Catherine gave an invited talk at the Institut Pasteur, Paris.
May 2019
Congrats to our graduates! Best of luck to Rachel and Mariam, and lab alum Madison, who all graduated with Bachelor of Science degrees in Neuroscience!
May 2019
Catherine and Laura traveled to Montreal for the International Society for Autism Research Annual meeting to present findings in a panel on the cerebellum and autism.
April 2019
Rachel won Best Poster Presentation in the Natural Sciences by a junior/senior at the Mathias Student Research Conference!
Laura won the award for Best Paper Presentation by a graduate student at the Mathias Student Research Conference!
The full list of winners can be found
here.
March 2019
Hayli is one of only 5 students across the University to win an AU Summer Scholars Award! Congrats, Hayli!
February 2019
Mariam has been awarded the 2019 Academic Achievement Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research or Creative Work by a Junior. Well done, Mariam!
December 2018
Our article has been named a "Notable paper in autism research" for 2018!
December 2018
Catherine has been named a 2018 Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science in recognition of outstanding contributions to the science of psychology.
December 2018
Congrats to Liz, who successfully defended her MA thesis!
December 2018
Catherine was honored to give an invited talk at the 2018 Fujihara Seminar "The cerebellum as a CNS hub" in Tokyo.
November 2018
Laura presented work from our combined tDCS-fMRI studies at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.
September 2018
Catherine gave an invited talk at the Iowa Neuroscience Institute 2018 Workshop "The cerebellum in bipolar disorder and other neuropsychiatric diseases".
May 2018
Congratulations to our graduates! Brianne Drury, Stephanie Martin, and Alyssa Lillian graduated with B.S. Neuroscience degrees!
April 2018
Congratulations to Laura, who has been awarded the prize for "Best Poster in the Natural Sciences by a Graduate Student" at the 2018 Robyn Rafferty Mathias conference! Laura has won a travel grant to an upcoming conference!
March 2018
Catherine has been named the recipient of the 2018 Morton Bender Prize for outstanding scholarly achievement since attaining the rank of Associate Professor.
March 2018
Brianne was part of a team of students that won AU's Global Health Competition! Read more here:
March 2018
Five students presented at the 2018 Robyn Rafferty Mathias Student Research Conference! Congrats to Laura, Stephanie, Alyssa, Rachel and Maddie!
December 2017
Here is some press coverage of our work on the cerebellum and autism:
November 2017
Our Nature Neuroscience article is a cover article! https://www.nature.com/neuro/volumes/20/issues/12
November 2017
We presented our work in two poster sessions at the Society for Neuroscience Annual meeting in DC.
October 2017
Our work with collaborator Peter Tsai, "Altered cerebellar connectivity in autism spectrum disorders and cerebellar-mediated rescue of autism-related behaviors", has been published in Nature Neuroscience!
June 2017
Catherine has been granted tenure and has been promoted to Associate Professor!
May 2017
Congrats to our 2017 Graduates!
Anila D'Mello, PhD, Behavior, Cognition, and Neuroscience
Caitlin Barrett, BS, Neuroscience
Darina Chudnovskaya, MS, Quantitative Analysis
Sophie Kotik, BS, Neuroscience
April 2017
Anila has won the "Outstanding Scholarship at the Graduate Level" award from American University! She will be honored at an awards ceremony and at graduation. Congrats, Anila!
April 2017
Caitlin won "Best Oral Presentation by an Undergraduate in the Life Sciences" at the Robyn Mathias Student Research Conference! Congratulations, Caitlin!
March 2017
Catherine presented Grand Rounds in Neurology at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
March 2017
Anila successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, "Cerebellum and Language: Applications to Autism"! Congrats, Dr. D'Mello!
January 2017
Anila is the lead author on our article "Cerebellar tDCS modulates neural circuits during semantic prediction: A combined tDCS-fMRI study", which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Neuroscience! This work was conducted in collaboration with Peter Turkeltaub at Georgetown.
December 2016
Dora's Master's thesis has been accepted for publication in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience! This study was conducted together with Lauren McGrath. The article is entitled "The developmental relationship between specific cognitive domains and grey matter in the cerebellum".
November 2016
Catherine gave an invited seminar on "The Cerebellum and Cognition" at the University of Colorado Boulder.
October 2016
In collaboration with Jeremy Schmahmann and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital, our article "Location of lesion determines motor vs. cognitive consequences in patients with cerebellar stroke" has been accepted for publication by NeuroImage: Clinical.
September 2016
Catherine gave an invited talk at the SickKids Neurosciences & Mental Health Emerging Frontier "Autism in the Cerebellum" Mini-symposium. Her talk was entitled "Cerebellum and Autism: From subregions to systems".
September 2016
Lauren McGrath's R15 award has been funded by NIMH! We are co-Investigators on this project investigating the cognitive and neural predictors of comorbid reading and attention problems.
June 2016
Tina successfully defended her Master's thesis! Congrats, Tina!
June 2016
Together with Peter Turkeltaub, we have published tDCS and tDCS-fMRI data from healthy young adults that support the potential use of cerebellar tDCS in aphasia
May 2016
Anila presented a poster at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Baltimore, MD
April 2016
Caitlin received the award for Best Undergraduate Presentation in the Sciences at the Robyn Rafferty Mathias conference!
April 2016
Caitlin and Sophie presented posters at the Robyn Rafferty Mathias conference!
April 2016
Anila presented a poster on our combined tDCS-fMRI data at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) Annual Meeting in New York City, NY
April 2016
Together with Catherine Limperopoulos, we have published a review paper on structure-function relationships in the developing cerebellum
March 2016
We published a study reporting that ASD children with early language delay and without early language delay show cerebellar grey matter differences even when matched on ADOS, ADI, and WISC subscales
February 2016
Catherine's R21 proposal was funded! We'll be starting a new project in collaboration with Peter Turkeltaub at Georgetown University studying the effects of cerebellar tDCS on post-stroke aphasia.
November 2015
We have published a new review on cerebro-cerebellar circuits in autism
August 2015
We have published a review discussing the role of the cerebellum is implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders
July 2015
Devon successfully defended his PhD dissertation! Congrats, Devon!
May 2015
Anila presented a poster and Catherine gave an invited talk at the Society for Research on the Cerebellum meeting in Brussels
April 2015
Catherine gave a talk at the Gaitlinburg Conference in New Orleans
April 2015
Dora successfully defended her Master's thesis!
April 2015
Dora presented her Master's thesis findings at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA
April 2015
Catherine's R15 NIH grant was funded!
January 2015
Devon has secured a Post-doctoral position at the University of Utrecht in the lab of Dr. Durston! Congrats, Devon!
November 2014
Devon and Catherine each presented a poster at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, DC
November 2014
Anila gave a Nanosymposium talk at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, DC