Autism expert explores brain, social behavior

From as early as high school, Robert Schultz, AS ’83, knew that he wanted to study psychology. As a UD undergraduate, he discovered that he wanted to combine that interest in the study of the mind with the study of the human brain.

Today, Schultz is an internationally recognized neuropsychologist known for his research involving the brain, behavior and autism.

“I had a couple of great early experiences with neuroscience, particularly from my senior thesis mentor, Prof. David Northmore, and also through a class and a lab with Prof. Carl Skeen,” he says of his time at UD. “From these formative experiences I was able to make a good choice on a graduate school program of work, and I have been able to continue on that path ever since.”

Schultz recalls that his undergraduate experience was enhanced by taking classes in other disciplines, including business and economics, political science and philosophy.

“Across the board, the quality of the teaching and the commitment to the students was quite evident,” he says. “I was very proactive in obtaining the experiences that I wanted, and UD was very accommodating of that style.”

Schultz returned to the UD campus this fall to lecture about his research on areas of the brain that govern important behavioral aspects, including those of individuals with autism spectrum disorder. He spoke to an audience of students, faculty and community members during a colloquium sponsored by the Department of Psychology.

Schultz, who in October joined the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as director of its Center for Autism Research, also holds an endowed chair at the hospital and serves as president of the International Society for Autism Research. Before coming to Philadelphia, he was an endowed associate professor and director of the Developmental Neuroimaging Program at the Yale Child Study Center.

His groundbreaking research at Yale explored the brain regions underlying social deficits in autism.

“With the advent of modern neuroimaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging [MRI], it is now possible to describe and discover important aspects of behavior, both typical and atypical,” Schultz says. “It is an exciting era, as we can now look in vivo at brain structure, connections and brain activity and begin to understand how brains work differently in different individuals.”

Researchers, he says, are learning that in individuals with autism, there are specific differences in the temporal lobes of the brain, located directly behind each ear.

“The temporal lobes have long been known to govern aspects of language and social communication,” Schultz says. “But my program of research, as well as research done by others, is showing that it is likely that the temporal lobes are the source for many of the problems that define autism.”

Among the defining characteristics of autism are early impairment in communication and language, impairment in social reciprocity and a resistance to change, Schultz says. “Mostly, when we say autism, what we really mean today is the autistic spectrum disorder, which represents a range of difficulties defined by these three categories of impairment,” he says.

One of the rewarding aspects of his work, he says, is seeing new data at the completion of a study and reviewing the data for the first time with students and colleagues.

“You put so many months—and sometimes years—of effort into conducting a study that when you finally have the first results, it is like a small child on Christmas morning,” Schultz says. “Looking at the data, you get a glimpse of the nature of certain things and their relationships, which is thrilling because you know you are seeing and understanding things in a new way that has never been understood before.”

At Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Schultz joins an existing program that investigates the early identification and prevalence of autism. He will be adding his research efforts to those of scientists at the Center for Autism Research in the use of other imaging techniques.

Funded by the Autism Centers of Excellence grant program of the National Institute of Mental Health, the new study will produce brain images of young children with an older sibling already diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders. Families interested in the possibility of participating in these studies should contact Schultz by e-mail at [Schultzrt@chop.edu].

“I will be focused on understanding why children with an autism spectrum disorder can be so different from one another,” he says. “While these children share many features, they each are unique, and together with my new colleagues, I will be studying the biological and other influences that make them unique.”

After graduating from UD, Schultz earned his doctorate in clinical psychology with a focus in neuropsychology from the University of Texas at Austin. He has been the recipient of a series of grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the James S. McDonnell Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

He also has received funding from such private sources as the National Association for Autism Research, and his work has been described in press reports, including The New York Times and Newsweek and on ABC-TV’s 20/20 and CNN.

—Jerry Rhodes, AS ’04