NACS Seminar: Dr. Dorit Kliemann (U of Iowa)

Behavioral and Neurobiological Basis of Social Information Processing: Insights from Autism and Lesion Studies

Social experiences and relationships affect momentary and long-term well-being. Difficulties in social information processing, however, are associated with many psychiatric conditions, including Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Understanding the behavioral mechanisms and the underlying neurobiological basis of social cognition is essential to predict individual differences, to aid (early) diagnoses, and to develop effective interventions. I will present several lines of work in my lab investigating social cognition with behavioral, eye-tracking, and neuroimaging methods. Our approach includes naturalistic dynamic social contexts designed to seek robust, replicable behavioral and neural correlates for social information processing that generalize across individuals and stimuli. I will discuss related challenges and our strategies to overcome those. I will also highlight our approaches leveraging insights from patients with focal brain lesions, and showcase novel results from ongoing studies on functional connectivity in ASD.

Dr. Dorit Kliemann is an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa.

Dr. William Hodos NACS Seminars are free and open to the public.