Email: rebecca_knickmeyer@med.unc.edu

Phone: (919) 966-2216

Fax: (919) 966-8994

Education:

B.A., Goucher College
Ph.D., University of Cambridge
Postdoctoral Training: The Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center and Department of Psychiatry, UNC-Chapel Hill

Research Interests:

Dr. Knickmeyer’s lab investigates the impact of genetic and hormonal variation on neurodevelopmental trajectories and risk for psychiatric disorders. She is currently leading a project which is applying cutting-edge techniques in genomics to a sample of 900 children who received high-resolution MRI of the brain at 2 weeks of age and utilizing next-generation sequencing to identify rare variants influencing brain development. She is also using MRI to characterize sexual differentiation of the brain, to evaluate the effects of prenatal exposure to antidepressant medications, and to study infants with Turner Syndrome, a remarkable participant group who can help us determine the role of sex hormones and X-chromosome genes on early brain development.

Representative Publications:

1. Knickmeyer, R.C. (2012). Turner Syndrome: Advances in Understanding Altered Cognition, Brain Structure and Function. Current Opinion in Neurology. 25(2):144-9. PMID 22322416.
2. Baron-Cohen, S., Lombardo, M.V., Auyeung, B., Ashwin, E., Chakrabarti, B., & Knickmeyer, R.C. (2011) Why are autism and Asperger Syndrome more common in males? PLOS Biology.  9(6): e1001081. PMID:21695109.
3. Knickmeyer, R.C., Kang, C., Woolson, S., Smith, J.K., Hamer, R.M., Lin, W., Gerig, G., Styner, M., & Gilmore, J.H. (2011). Twin-singleton differences in neonatal brain structure. Twin Research and Human Genetics. 14(3):268-76. PMID:21623657.
4. Gilmore, J.H., Schmitt, J.E., Knickmeyer, R.C., Smith, J.K., Lin, W., Styner, M., Gerig, G., & Neale, M.C. (2010). Genetic and environmental contributions to neonatal brain structure: A twin study. Human Brain Mapping 31(8):1174-1182. PMID:20063301.
5. Knickmeyer, R.C., Styner, M., Short, S.J., Lubach, G.R., Kang, C., Hamer, R., Coe, C.L., & Gilmore, J.H. (2010). Maturational trajectories of cortical brain development through the pubertal transition: unique species and sex differences in the monkey revealed through structural magnetic resonance imaging. Cerebral Cortex. 20(5):1053-63. PMID:19703936.