Allan L. Reiss

Title
Professor

Department
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Research Interests
Brain development and function in children with neurogenetic, neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders; behavioral neurogenetics, structural and functional imaging.

Email
areiss1@stanford.edu

Phone
498-4538

Fax
498-4538

Address
PBS C108C
Mail Code: 5719

Faculty Research Description
A number of different research studies are ongoing in Dr. Reiss' research lab. These studies focus on two primary areas of investigation, (1) behavioral neurogenetics and (2) neuroimaging. The Behavioral Neurogenetics Program of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Stanford University School of Medicine represents the continuation of 15 years of research by Dr. Reiss into the genetic and neurobiological bases of cognitive and neuropsychiatric dysfunction in individuals with known or presumed homogenous etiologies for neurobehavioral dysfunction.

Disorders currently under study by Dr. Reiss include individuals with fragile X syndrome, Turner syndrome, velo-cadio-facial syndrome, Turner syndrome and other sex chromosome aneuploidies, autism, ADHD and dyslexia. This work emphasizes the elucidation of quantitative/statistical linkages among specific genetic factors, measures of brain structure and function, markers of neuroendocrine function, variables representing the influence of the environment, and behavior (broadly defined). Other collaborative research in the Neuroimaging lab focuses on children or adults with normal development, bipolar disorder, major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Dr. Reiss, Director of the Stanford Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory (SPNL), has a well-established tradition in quantitative neuroimaging research dating back to 1987 with a particular focus on specialized pediatric groups. The SPNL currently serves as one of the original funded sites for Phase I of the Human Brain Project, a multi-center, multi-NIH Institute supported research program designed to promote the development of innovative software, methodology and advanced informatics for the next decade of neuroscience research (NIH Program Announcement PA-93-068). The research aims of the SPNL Human Brain Project fall into in three principal areas: (1) ongoing development of advanced software modules for quantitative image analysis, (2) determination of the reliability and validity of the methods and algorithms comprising these modules and, (3) evaluation of the utility of this software in pilot imaging studies of normal pediatric controls and unique pediatric patient groups with homogeneous genetic or neurobiological causes of neurobehavioral dysfunction. Software development focus in the lab has resulted in the creation of BrainImage, an advanced 2D and 3D image processing and analysis program.

Representative Publication(s): Reiss AL, Freund LS, Baumgardner TL, Abrams MT, Denckla MB: Contribution of the FMR1 gene mutation to human intellectual dysfunction. Nature Genetics 11: 331-334, 1995.

Reiss AL, Hennessey JG, Rubin M, Beach L, Abrams MT, Warsofsky I, Liu MC, Links JM: Reliability and validity of an algorithm for fuzzy tissue segmentation of MRI. Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography 22: 471-479, 1998.

Eliez S, Antonarakis SE, Morris MA, Dahoun SP, Reiss AL: Parental origin of the deletion 22q11.2 and brain development in velo-cardio-facial syndrome: A preliminary study. Archives of General Psychiatry 58: 64-68, 2001.

Haberecht M, Menon V, Warsofsky IS, White CD, Glover GH, Reiss AL: Functional neuroanatomy of visuo-spatial working memory in Turner syndrome. Human Brain Mapping (in press)

Kwon H, Menon V, Eliez S, Warsofsky IS, White CD, Dyer-Friedman J, Taylor AK, Glover GH, Reiss AL: Functional neuroanatomy of visuospatial working memory in fragile X syndrome: Relation to behavior and molecular measures. American Journal of Psychiatry (in press).

Areas of Study
SBRC