Click here for news and recognition for our research
Selected Publications (click here for a full list of publications)
Initial discovery of excessive CSF volume in babies who later developed autism
Shen MD, Nordahl CW, Young GS, Wootton-Gorges SL, Lee A, Liston SE†, Harrington KR†, Ozonoff S, Amaral DG. Early Brain Enlargement and Elevated Extra-Axial Fluid in Infants Who Develop Autism Spectrum Disorder. Brain, 2013.
Replication of excessive CSF in 2nd sample of babies who developed autism
Shen MD, Kim SH, McKinstry RC, Gu H, Hazlett HC, Nordahl CW, Emerson RW, Shaw D, Elison JT, Swanson, MR, Fonov VS, Gerig G, Dager SR, Botteron KN, Paterson S, Schultz RT, Evans AC, Estes AM, Zwaigenbaum L, Styner MA, Amaral DG*, Piven J*, for the IBIS Network. Increased Extra-axial Cerebrospinal Fluid in Infants who Later Develop Autism. Biological Psychiatry, 2017.
Selected by Autism Speaks as one of the Top 10 Papers of the Year
Shen MD, Nordahl CW, Li DD, Lee A, Angkustsiri K, Emerson RW, Rogers SJ, Ozonoff S, Amaral DG. Extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid in high-risk and normal-risk children with autism aged 2-4 years: a case-control study. Lancet Psychiatry, 2018.
Selected by Autism Speaks as one of the Top 10 Papers of the Year. Nominated by NIH as a finalist for their annual report of the “most significant advances in autism research”
Murphy VA†, Shen MD, Kim SH, Cornea E, Styner M, Gilmore JH. Extra-axial Cerebrospinal Fluid Relationships to Infant Brain Structure, Cognitive Development, and Risk for Schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry: CNNI, 2020.
Development of a publicly-available software to quantify extra-axial CSF volume from brain MRIs
Mostapha M†, Kim SH, Evans AC, Dager SR, Estes AM, McKinstry RC, Botteron KN, Gerig G, Pizer SM, Schultz RT, Hazlett HC, Piven J, Girault JB, IBIS Network, Shen MD, Styner MA. A Novel Method for High-Dimensional Anatomical Mapping of Extra-Axial Cerebrospinal Fluid: Application to the Infant Brain. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2020
Review paper of CSF abnormalities in NDDs — and proposing new studies to study its mechanisms
Shen MD. Cerebrospinal Fluid and the Early Brain Development of Autism. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 2018.
Shen MD, Swanson MR, Wolff JJ, Elison JT, Girault JB, Kim SY, Smith RG, Graves MM, Weisenfeld LH, Flake L, MacIntyre L, Gross JL†, Burrows CA, Fonov VS, Collins DL, Evans AC, Gerig G, McKinstry RC, Pandey J, St. John T, Zwaigenbaum L, Estes AM, Dager SR, Schultz RT, Styner MA, Botteron KN, Hazlett HC*, Piven J*, for the IBIS Network. Subcortical Brain Development in Autism and Fragile X Syndrome: Evidence for Dynamic, Age- and Disorder-Specific Trajectories in Infancy. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2022.
Shen MD, Li DD, Keown CL, Lee A, Johnson RT, Angkustsiri K, Rogers SJ, Müller RA, Amaral DG, Nordahl CW. Functional connectivity of the amygdala is disrupted in preschool-aged children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2016.
Nominated by NIH as a finalist for their annual report of the “most significant advances in autism research”
First study of white matter development in infants with FXS, showing impaired WM development
Swanson MR*, Wolff JJ*, Shen MD, Styner MA, Estes A, Gerig G, McKinstry RC, Botteron K, Piven J, Hazlett HC, for the IBIS Network. Development of white matter circuitry in infants with fragile X syndrome. JAMA Psychiatry, 2018.
Judson MC, Burette AC, Thaxton CL, Pribisko AL, Shen MD, Rumple AM, Del Cid WA, Paniagua B, Styner M, Weinberg RJ, Philpot BD. Decreased Axon Caliber Underlies Loss of Fiber Tract Integrity, Disproportional Reductions in White Matter Volume, and Microcephaly in Angelman Syndrome Model Mice. Journal of Neuroscience, 2017.
MacDuffie KE, Shen MD, Dager SR, Styner MA, Kim SH, Paterson S, Pandey J, St John T, Elison JT, Wolff JJ, Swanson MR, Botteron KN, Zwaigenbaum L, Piven J, Estes AM, for the IBIS Network. Sleep Onset Problems and Subcortical Development in Infants Later Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2020.
Wolff JJ, Swanson MR, Elison JT, Gerig G, Pruett JR, Styner MA, Vachet C, Botteron KN, Dager SR, Estes AM, Hazlett HC, Schultz RT, Shen MD, Zwaigenbaum L, Piven J, for the IBIS Network. Neural circuitry at age 6 months associated with later repetitive behavior and sensory features in autism. Molecular Autism, 2017.
Autism Speaks Top 10 Papers of the Year. Nominated by NIH as a finalist for their annual report of the “most significant advances in autism research”
Functional connectivity MRI at 6 months shown to predict later autism diagnosis
Emerson RW, Adams C, Nishino T, Hazlett HC, Wolff JJ, Zwaigenbaum L, Constantino J, Shen MD, Swanson MR, Elison JT, Kandala S, Estes AM, Botteron KN, Collins L, Dager SR, Evans AC, Gerig G, Gu H, McKinstry RC, Paterson SR, Schultz RT, Styner M, Schlaggar BL, Pruett JR, Piven J, for the IBIS Network. Functional neuroimaging in 6-month-old high-risk infants predicts a diagnosis of autism at 24 months of age. Science Translational Medicine, 2017.
Autism Speaks Top 10 Papers of the Year. Nominated by NIH as a finalist for their annual report of the “most significant advances in autism research”
Review paper summarizing brain and behavioral findings in infants who develop autism
Shen MD & Piven J. Brain and behavior development in autism from birth through infancy. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 2017.
Development of new methods to make neuroscience more inclusive for individuals across the autism spectrum
Nordahl CW, Mello M, Shen AM, Shen MD, Vismara LA, Li DD, Harrington KR†, Tanase C, Goodlin-Jones B, Rogers SJ, Abbeduto L, Amaral DG. Methods for Acquiring MRI Data in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Impairment Without the Use of Sedation. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 2016.
Nominated by NIH as a finalist for their annual report of the “most significant advances in autism research”
Notes: † Student/trainee. * Co-first or Co-senior authors contributed equally.
News and Recognition for Our Research
2024: Dr. Shen was awarded the 2024 Hettleman Prize as one of the five exceptional early-career faculty at UNC.
2023: Dr. Garic and Dr. Shen were interviewed by UNC School of Medicine about their new publication, “Enlarged Spaces in Infant Brains Linked to Higher Risk of Autism, Sleep Problems”
2023: Article/Interviewed by Spectrum News, “Is excess brain fluid an early marker of autism?”.
2023: Dr. Shen’s paper was selected by AJP editors as one of the most important and interesting articles of the last year, featured in their “2022 Articles of Import and Impact” editorial.
2022: Dr. Shen’s paper in AJP was ranked the 2nd most accessed article on the journal’s website and the 5th most talked about article across thousands of social media outlets.
2021: Invited speaker at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) annual Brain Barriers Conference: “CSF abnormalities in infants with NDDs and corresponding rodent models”.
2020: Interviewed by Simons Foundation for the news feature, “Brain Structure Changes in Autism” .
2019: Our research was the topic of UNC’s weekly podcast “Well Said: Detecting Early Markers for Autism”.
2019: Our collaborative research is featured in the article: “How the core pipeline flows: Mark Shen's autism research moves core to core through Carolina's collaboration pipeline”.
2018: Dr. Shen named the Early Career Investigator of the Year by the International Society for Autism Research, the largest scientific organization of autism researchers worldwide.
2018: For the second consecutive year, Dr. Shen’s first-authored paper was ranked as “Top 10 Papers of the Year” by Autism Speaks, “selected from over 2,000 peer-reviewed research reports published in scientific journals this year.”
2017: Dr. Shen’s first-authored paper was ranked as one of the “Top 10 Papers of the Year” by Autism Speaks, “selected from over 4,000 peer-reviewed research reports published in scientific journals this year.”
2017: Three papers nominated by NIH as finalists for their annual report of “the most significant advances in autism research” (NIH Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, Summary of Advances, 2017)
2016: Two papers nominated by NIH as finalists for their annual report of “the most significant advances in autism research” (NIH Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, Summary of Advances, 2016)