Dr Michael Lombardo

Michael Lombardo

University position

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

Departments

Department of Psychiatry

Institutes

Autism Research Centre

Email

ml437@cam.ac.uk

Home page

http://sites.google.com/site/mv... (personal home page)

Research Themes

Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience

Clinical and Veterinary Neuroscience

The Cambridge Neuroscience Community

Interests

My research deals with the neural systems of social cognition/behavior and autism spectrum conditions.

Shared neural circuits for mentalizing about the self and other. a) Activation for mentalizing about self (red voxels) or other (blue voxels). White voxels denote overlap for self- and other-mentalizing. b) Common functional connectivity from shared vMPFC, PCC, and RTPJ seed regions. Red voxels show connectivity for self-mentalizing and blue voxels are for other-mentalizing. White voxels denote the overlap in connectivity for self- and other-mentalizing
Shared neural circuits for mentalizing about the self and other. a) Activation for mentalizing about self (red voxels) or other (blue voxels). White voxels denote overlap for self- and other-mentalizing. b) Common functional connectivity from shared vMPFC, PCC, and RTPJ seed regions. Red voxels show connectivity for self-mentalizing and blue voxels are for other-mentalizing. White voxels denote the overlap in connectivity for self- and other-mentalizing
View image full-size (2081x2343 pixels)

Research Focus

Keywords

autism

social cognition

testosterone

self

social neuroscience

Clinical conditions

Autism

Equipment

Behavioural analysis

Computational modelling

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Neuropsychological testing

Collaborators

Cambridge

Simon Baron-Cohen

Ed Bullmore

Bhismadev Chakrabarti

Key publications

Lombardo MV, Ashwin E, Auyeung B, Chakrabarti B, Lai MC, Taylor K, Hackett G, Bullmore ET, Baron-Cohen S (2012), “Fetal Programming Effects of Testosterone on the Reward System and Behavioral Approach Tendencies in Humans.” Biol Psychiatry Details

Lombardo MV, Ashwin E, Auyeung B, Chakrabarti B, Taylor K, Hackett G, Bullmore ET, Baron-Cohen S (2012), “Fetal Testosterone Influences Sexually Dimorphic Gray Matter in the Human Brain.” J Neurosci 32(2):674-680 PDF Details

Lombardo MV, Baron-Cohen S (2011), “The role of the self in mindblindness in autism.” Conscious Cogn 20(1):130-40 Details

Lombardo MV, Baron-Cohen S, Belmonte MK, Chakrabarti B (2011), “Neural endophenotypes of social behaviour in autism spectrum conditions” Oxford Handbook of Social Neuroscience

Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Bullmore ET, Baron-Cohen S, MRC AIMS Consortium (2011), “Specialization of right temporo-parietal junction for mentalizing and its relation to social impairments in autism.” Neuroimage 56(3):1832-8 Details

Lombardo MV, Baron-Cohen S (2010), “Unraveling the paradox of the autistic self” WIREs Cogn Sci 1(3): 393-403

Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Bullmore ET, Sadek SA, Pasco G, Wheelwright SJ, Suckling J, MRC AIMS Consortium, Baron-Cohen S (2010), “Atypical neural self-representation in autism.” Brain 133(Pt 2):611-24 Details

Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Bullmore ET, Wheelwright SJ, Sadek SA, Suckling J, MRC AIMS Consortium, Baron-Cohen S (2010), “Shared neural circuits for mentalizing about the self and others.” J Cogn Neurosci 22(7):1623-35 Details

Lombardo MV, Barnes JL, Wheelwright SJ, & Baron-Cohen S (2007), “Self-referential cognition and empathy in autism” PLoS One 2:e883 PDF Details

Publications

2012

Beacher FD, Minati L, Baron-Cohen S, Lombardo MV, Lai MC, Gray MA, Harrison NA, Critchley HD (2012), “Autism attenuates sex differences in brain structure: a combined voxel-based morphometry and diffusion tensor imaging study.” AJNR Am J Neuroradiol 33(1):83-9 Details

Beacher FD, Radulescu E, Minati L, Baron-Cohen S, Lombardo MV, Lai MC, Walker A, Howard D, Gray MA, Harrison NA, Critchley HD (2012), “Sex Differences and Autism: Brain Function during Verbal Fluency and Mental Rotation.” PLoS One 7(6):e38355 Details

Christakou A, Murphy CM, Chantiluke K, Cubillo AI, Smith AB, Giampietro V, Daly E, Ecker C, Robertson D, MRC AIMS consortium, Murphy DG, Rubia K (2012), “Disorder-specific functional abnormalities during sustained attention in youth with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and with Autism.” Mol Psychiatry Details

Ecker C, Suckling J, Deoni SC, Lombardo MV, Bullmore ET, Baron-Cohen S, Catani M, Jezzard P, Barnes A, Bailey AJ, Williams SC, Murphy DG, for the MRC AIMS Consortium (2012), “Brain Anatomy and Its Relationship to Behavior in Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Multicenter Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.” Arch Gen Psychiatry 69(2):195-209 Details

Lai MC, Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Ecker C, Sadek SA, Wheelwright SJ, Murphy DG, Suckling J, Bullmore ET, MRC AIMS Consortium, Baron-Cohen S (2012), “Individual differences in brain structure underpin empathizing-systemizing cognitive styles in male adults.” Neuroimage Details

Lai MC, Lombardo MV, Ruigrok AN, Chakrabarti B, Wheelwright SJ, Auyeung B, Allison C, MRC AIMS Consortium, Baron-Cohen S (2012), “Cognition in males and females with autism: similarities and differences.” PLoS One 7(10):e47198 Details

Langen M, Leemans A, Johnston P, Ecker C, Daly E, Murphy CM, Dell'acqua F, Durston S, the AIMS Consortium, Murphy DG (2012), “Fronto-striatal circuitry and inhibitory control in autism: Findings from diffusion tensor imaging tractography.” Cortex 48(2):183-193 Details

Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Lai MC, MRC AIMS Consortium, Baron-Cohen S (2012), “Self-referential and social cognition in a case of autism and agenesis of the corpus callosum.” Mol Autism 3(1):14 Details

Sato JR, Hoexter MQ, Oliveira PP Jr, Brammer MJ, MRC AIMS Consortium, Murphy D, Ecker C (2012), “Inter-regional cortical thickness correlations are associated with autistic symptoms: A machine-learning approach.” J Psychiatr Res Details

Sundram F, Deeley Q, Sarkar S, Daly E, Latham R, Craig M, Raczek M, Fahy T, Picchioni M, UK AIMS Network, Barker GJ, Murphy DG (2012), “White matter microstructural abnormalities in the frontal lobe of adults with antisocial personality disorder.” Cortex 48(2):216-29 Details

2011

Baron-Cohen S, Lombardo MV, Auyeung B, Ashwin E, Chakrabarti B, Knickmeyer R (2011), “Why are autism spectrum conditions more prevalent in males?” PLoS Biol 9(6):e1001081 PDF Details

Lai MC, Lombardo MV, Pasco G, Ruigrok AN, Wheelwright SJ, Sadek SA, Chakrabarti B, MRC AIMS Consortium, Baron-Cohen S (2011), “A behavioral comparison of male and female adults with high functioning autism spectrum conditions.” PLoS One 6(6):e20835 PDF Details

2010

Beer JS, Lombardo MV, Bhanji JP (2010), “Roles of Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Orbitofrontal Cortex in Self-evaluation.” J Cogn Neurosci 22(9):2108-19 Details

Chura LR, Lombardo MV, Ashwin E, Auyeung B, Chakrabarti B, Bullmore ET, Baron-Cohen S (2010), “Organizational effects of fetal testosterone on human corpus callosum size and asymmetry.” Psychoneuroendocrinology 35(1):122-32 Details

Ecker C, Rocha-Rego V, Johnston P, Mourao-Miranda J, Marquand A, Daly EM, Brammer MJ, Murphy C, Murphy DG, MRC AIMS Consortium (2010), “Investigating the predictive value of whole-brain structural MR scans in autism: a pattern classification approach.” Neuroimage 49(1):44-56 Details

Lai MC, Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Sadek SA, Pasco G, Wheelwright SJ, Bullmore ET, Baron-Cohen S, MRC AIMS Consortium, Suckling J (2010), “A Shift to Randomness of Brain Oscillations in People with Autism.” Biol Psychiatry Details

2009

Barnes JL, Lombardo MV, Wheelwright S, Baron-Cohen S (2009), “Moral Dilemmas Film Task: a study of spontaneous narratives by individuals with autism spectrum conditions.” Autism Res Details

Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Baron-Cohen S (2009), “The amygdala in autism: not adapting to faces?” Am J Psychiatry 166(4):395-7 Details

Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Baron-Cohen S (2009), “What neuroimaging and perceptions of self-other similarity can tell us about the mechanism underlying mentalizing.” Behav Brain Sci 32(2):152-153

Minio-Paluello I, Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Wheelwright S, Baron-Cohen S (2009), “Response to Smith's Letter to the Editor 'Emotional Empathy in Autism Spectrum Conditions: Weak, Intact, or Heightened?'” J Autism Dev Disord

2008

Beer JS, Stallen M, Lombardo MV, Gonsalkorale K, Cunningham WA, Sherman JW (2008), “The Quadruple Process model approach to examining the neural underpinnings of prejudice.” Neuroimage 43(4):775-83 Details

Cohen MX, Lombardo MV, Blumenfeld RS (2008), “Covariance-based subdivision of the human striatum using T1-weighted MRI.” Eur J Neurosci 27(6):1534-46 Details