# ADVANCING EARLY BEHAVIORAL AND NEURAL PHENOTYPES OF SOCIAL MOTIVATION IN ASD

> **NIH NIH K08** · WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $185,929

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are increasingly prevalent neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by
core deficits in social communication and significant impairments in daily living skills, with the cost of support for
ASD-affected individuals estimated at over eleven billion dollars per year in the United States. There is no cure
for ASD, and although early interventions prior to age 3 can improve outcomes, the median age of diagnosis in
the U.S. is still close to 4 years. The elucidation of developmental mechanisms of ASD will be critical for 1)
advancing the age of earliest diagnosis and 2) optimizing current therapeutic targets. One under-explored theory
of ASD proposes that early deficiencies in social motivation, the human drive to orient preferentially to social
stimuli and to seek and maintain social interactions, prevent children from engaging in social learning
experiences, resulting in a cascade of autistic symptoms, including impaired communication. Currently, there is
no measure to quantify social motivation in early life, and such a tool is a necessary step to begin to determine
how primary deficiencies in social motivation influence the course of ASD, both at the level of behavior and the
brain. The research plan for this mentored K08 award proposes to refine an initial social motivation index, derived
from existing infant and toddler data from two NIH-funded studies into a heritable, questionnaire-based index
that a) is more predictive of ASD and b) can track the course of social motivation in infancy, before ASD is
currently diagnosed. This index will then be 1) tested in combination with novel task-based assessments of social
motivation, to determine if these direct measures improve the ability to distinguish children with and without ASD,
and 2) analyzed in relationship to existing infant neuroimaging data to determine how social motivation relates
to structural and functional brain connectivity in early development. To achieve these research objectives, the
candidate, a child psychiatrist and neuroscientist, has assembled a multidisciplinary mentoring team who will
provide necessary training over a period of 5 years in behavioral phenotyping, statistical modeling,
developmental psychology, and processing and analysis of diffusion weighted imaging data (DTI) and resting
state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging data (rs-fcMRI). The goal of this career development
award is to enable the candidate to develop an R01-funded research program aimed at clarifying the
relationships between developmental deviations in core social functions, communication, and the neural systems
underlying ASD, all of which are important avenues to guide novel targets for intervention. Further, in her future
R01 project, the candidate will propose to adapt assessments of social motivation generated through this K08 to
younger infants, for whom it could serve as an early diagnostic tool for ASD. This project ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9893015
- **Project number:** 5K08MH112891-04
- **Recipient organization:** WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Natasha Marrus
- **Activity code:** K08 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $185,929
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-04-01 → 2022-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9893015

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9893015, ADVANCING EARLY BEHAVIORAL AND NEURAL PHENOTYPES OF SOCIAL MOTIVATION IN ASD (5K08MH112891-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9893015. Licensed CC0.

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