Research Summary
I am a biomedical engineer with specific training and expertise in imaging science and sensory-motor neuroscience. In recent years, I have focused on developing innovative and reliable functional connectivity-based parcellation methods to study brain organization. Using these methods, we have demonstrated that abnormalities in the functional segregation of limb control within the motor system and in the intrinsic synchronization between motor and visual systems are related to the severity of social deficits in school-age children with autism. As part of my NIMH funded Career Development Award (K01 MH109766-01), I am extending these findings to study the longitudinal development of visual-motor synchronization and hand-eye coordination in infants at high risk for autism to determine whether the abnormalities observed in school-age children come online before or after symptom onset. I am also collaborating with others in the department to develop movement-based intervention methods for enhancing visual-motor connectivity necessary for imitating and learning from the actions of others.
Selected Publications
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Mejia AF, Nebel MB, Eloyan A, Caffo B, & Lindquist MA. "PCA leverage: outlier detection for high-dimensional functional magnetic resonance imaging data" Biostatistics. In press.
Landa RJ, Haworth JL & Nebel MB. "Ready, Set, Go! Low Anticipatory Response during a Dyadic Task in Infants at High Familial Risk for Autism" Frontiers in Psychology 7:721, 2016. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00721
Nebel MB, Eloyan A, Nettles CA, Sweeney K, Ament K, Ward R, Choe AS, Barber AD, Pekar JJ & Mostofsky SH. "Intrinsic visual-motor functional connectivity relates to social deficits in autism" Biol Psychiatry, 79(8): 633-41, 2016.
Muschelli J*, Nebel MB*+, Caffo BS, Barber AD, Pekar JJ, & Mostofsky SH. "Reduction of motion-related artifacts in resting state fMRI using aCompCor" NeuroImage 96: 22-35, 2014. *contributed equally
Nebel MB, Joel SE, Muschelli J, Barber AD, Caffo BS, Pekar JJ & Mostofsky SH. "Disruption of functional organization within the primary motor cortex in children with autism" Human Brain Mapping 35: 567-580, 2014.
Lindquist MA, Xu Y, Nebel MB & Caffo BS. "Evaluating dynamic bivariate correlations in resting-state fMRI: A comparison study and a new approach" NeuroImage 101: 531-46, 2014.
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