Kimberly Carpenter (Hills)
BA, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2004, Psychology
Research Lab: Drs. Aysenil Belger and A. Chistina Grobin
e-mail: kimberly_hills@med.unc.edu
My project aims to integrate human and animal research as a means to investigate the potential role of GABAA receptors in the pathophysiology of autism. The human portion of my study is being completed under the supervision of Dr. Aysenil Belger, with whom I am using functional neuroimaging to probe how the limbic system functions in the social processing of autistic individuals. Under Dr. A. Chistina Grobin, I am using GABAA alpha 4 knockout mice to investigate a possible role for the alpha 4 receptor in social behavior. Together I hope to delineate a connection between the GABAA alpha 4 receptor and altered limbic function, which may play a role in the development of the social deficits observed in autism.