Headshot portrait of Andrea Fisher - Bio-X Undergraduate Fellow
2014 Undergraduate Summer Research Program Participant

Home Department: Biology
Supported by: Dean of Research
Mentor: Allan Reiss, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and Radiology

Andrea Fisher is using behavioral and brain MRI data collected from the same children over a twelve-year period for Dr. Allan Reiss's Early Childhood/School Age Longitudinal Fragile X study, in order to investigate differences in subcortical brain volumes and behavioral characteristics between children with Fragile X syndrome and non-Fragile X syndrome children exhibiting Autism Spectrum Disorder. Her research focuses on the relationship between early amygdala development and demonstrations of social interest later in life.

Poster presented at the Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Symposium on August 27, 2014:

How Brain Structure Drives Behavioral Development: Early Amygdala Volume and Later Behavioral Outcome in Individuals with Fragile X Syndrome and Idiopathic Autism

Andrea Fisher1,2, Jennifer L. Bruno1,2, Ashley Stark1,2, Amy A. Lightbody1,2, Allan L. Reiss1,2,3,4
[Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research1, and Departments of Psychiatry2, Radiology3, and Pediatrics4, Stanford University]