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Dr. Melissa C. Goldberg is a research scientist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. She is also an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Biographical Sketch:
Dr. Goldberg received her B.A. in Psychology in 1990 from Washington University in St. Louis and her M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology in 1992 from Harvard University. Dr. Goldberg received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology in 1998 from McMaster University. During her doctoral studies, Dr. Goldberg also took research internships in the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health and at the Institute for Child Study of the University of Maryland. Dr. Goldberg completed a post-doctoral fellowship in 2000 in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, conducting research and training on autism at REACH, Research Excellence in Autism and Communication Disorders at Hopkins. In 2000, Dr. Goldberg joined the faculty at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and became Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Research Summary:
The overall focus of Dr. Goldberg’s research is to advance understanding about the cognitive neuropsychological mechanisms underlying autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Autism is a childhood-onset neuropsychiatric disorder affecting social, communicative, behavioral, and emotional development. Autism is thought to have multiple neuropsychological causes and various brain regions as abnormal. Dr. Goldberg uses behavioral paradigms together with brain-imaging techniques such as, MRI and functional-MRI as tools in her research on the neural mechanisms of autism. Ongoing research projects include investigation of face processing, social attention mediated by eye gaze cues, reward system, anatomic MRI, and fMRI in children with high functioning autism.
Dr. Goldberg was awarded a five-year Career Development Award (2000-2005) from the NIH National Institute of Mental Health to examine executive functions and brain mechanisms in children with high functioning autism (HFA) and in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), distinctive childhood psychiatric disorders which are both referred to in the literature as "disorders of executive function." The goals of this research were (1) to understand neuropsychological profiles that characterize the executive impairments in these childhood psychiatric disorders, and (2) to identify their underlying neural mechanisms. This research involved cognitive neuropsychological paradigms, structural MRI, and fMRI as tools for investigating hypotheses about inhibition, working memory, planning, and set-shifting in 8 to 12 year old children with HFA and children with ADHD. Results from behavioral studies showed subtle impairment in executive function, particularly, spatial working memory in children with autism and in children with ADHD (see Goldberg, Mostofsky, Cutting, Denckla, and Landa, 2005 below).
Recent Publications/Presentations:
Mostofsky, S.H., Dubey, P., Jerath, V.K., Jansiewicz, E.M., Goldberg, M.C., Denckla, M.B. (2006, in press). Developmental dyspraxia is not limited to imitation in children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of the International Neurological Society.
Jansiewicz, E., Goldberg, M.C., Newschaffer, C.J., Denckla, M.B., Landa, R.J., and Mostofsky, S.H. (2006, in press). Motor signs distinguish children with high functioning autism and Asperger’s syndrome from controls. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
Ben Shalom, D., Mostofsky, S.H., Hazlett, R.L., Goldberg, M.C., Landa, R.L., Faran, Y., McLeod, D.R., Hoehn-Saric, R. (2006). Normal Physiological Emotions but Differences in Expression of Conscious Feelings in Children with High-Functioning Autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36, 395-400.
Mahone, E.M., Powell, S.K., Loftis, C.W., Goldberg, M.C., Denckla, M.B., and Mostofsky. (2006). Motor Persistence and Inhibition in Autism and ADHD. Journal of the International Neurological Society, 12, 1-10.
Mostofsky, S.H., Rimrodt, S., Schafer, J.G., Boyce, A., Goldberg, M.C., Pekar, J.J., Denckla, M.B. (2006). Atypical motor and sensory cortex activation in ADHD: an fMRI study of simple sequential finger tapping. Biological Psychiatry, 59, 48-56.
Landa, R.J. and Goldberg, M.C. (2005). Language and Executive Functions in High Functioning Autism: A continuum of impaired to enhanced performance. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35, 557-73.
Goldberg, M.C., Mostofsky, S.H., Cutting, L.E., Mahone, E.M., Astor, BC, Denckla, M.B., & Landa, R.J. (2005). Subtle Executive Impairment in Children with Autism and Children with ADHD. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35, 279-93. |
