# Mental Health in Autistic Adults: An RDoC Approach

> **NIH NIH P50** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2024 · $2,312,328

## Abstract

Center Overview Abstract
The University of Pittsburgh Autism Center of Excellence (ACE) directly addresses the Interagency Autism
Coordinating Committee’s call for research on adult mental health to improve safety and quality of life, and to
reduce premature mortality. We do so by generating the measures and mechanistic targets needed to improve
mental health and reduce suicide risk in autistic adults. We address this understudied and critical topic in
authentic partnership with autistic adults and their allies. We emphasize mechanistic translation, bring new
researchers to work on autism, and provide an academic home for junior researchers getting started in this
area. We will assemble a Pittsburgh ACE cohort of 200 autistic and 100 non-autistic 18- to 65-year-old adults
(≥ 50 with recent suicidality in each group) who will complete three projects that are focused on different units
of analysis (self-report, behavior and ambulatory physiology, and neural circuits), time scales, and primary
outcomes, all related to adult mental health. Project 1 will provide the first dimensional self-report questionnaire
of suicidality developed for ASD and the first longitudinal characterization of suicidality in autistic adults. Project
2’s innovative physiologically-triggered ecological momentary design will characterize proximal risk processes
for suicidal ideation, non-suicidal self-injury, and impulsive aggression in a temporally sensitive manner to
allow for future interventions prior to escalation of emotion dysregulation and harmful outcomes. Project 3 tests
a neural mechanistic model of early neural hyper-reactivity to stimuli followed by decreased recruitment of
regulatory resources and consequent physiological, subjective, and behavioral hypo-reactivity. Our Clinical
Core provides data to all of the projects to characterize the sample, including novel phenotypic measures (e.g.,
a biomarker of aging based on structural brain images). Our Center structure enables us to integrate data from
all sources to enhance the impact of individual projects. For example, we will speed translation by connecting a
biological causal mechanism to lived experience and longitudinal outcomes. We will pool all data to identify the
most salient predictors of suicidality trajectories, providing a significant advance over approaches that consider
small sets of predictors and enabling determination of relative contributions to risk. We will shed light on
heterogeneity in outcomes by connecting subgroups based on daily dynamics of emotion and physiological
reactivity and regulation to neural reactivity and suicidality. Our age range and transdiagnostic, suicidal
comparison group allows us to determine what is unique about mental health in ASD and how aging may play
a role. We will employ novel means to disseminate this critical information to the community with the help of
our team of autistic partners from diverse backgrounds. This process will ensure that our Center will not ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10902123
- **Project number:** 5P50MH130957-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** Carla A Mazefsky
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $2,312,328
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-06 → 2027-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10902123

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10902123, Mental Health in Autistic Adults: An RDoC Approach (5P50MH130957-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10902123. Licensed CC0.

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