I'm an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cyprus. I direct the Laboratory for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (LAND) at UCY.

 

My interests and expertise span multiple disciplines and are all applied in a translational research program focused on understanding heterogeneity and early developmental mechanisms involved in autism and atypical neurodevelopment. I did my undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of California, Davis. Shortly after, I did a couple years of postgraduate research at both the UC Davis MIND Institute and UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain. I then moved to the University of Cambridge and obtained my PhD in the Department of Psychiatry at the Autism Research Centre with Prof Simon Baron-Cohen. I continued in Cambridge after the PhD, holding post-doctoral fellowships from Jesus College, Cambridge and the British Academy.

 

 

autism, neurodevelopmental disorders, heterogeneity, individual differences, computational psychiatry, precision medicine, data science, fetal programming, social and affective neuroscience, social communication, social cognition, emotion, mentalizing, theory of mind, empathy, sex/gender, brain development, steroid hormones, genomics, transcriptomics, network science, bioinformatics

I'm an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cyprus. I direct the Laboratory for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (LAND) at UCY. 

My interests and expertise span multiple disciplines and are all applied in a translational research program focused on understanding heterogeneity and early developmental mechanisms involved in autism and atypical neurodevelopment. I did my undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of California, Davis. Shortly after, I did a couple years of postgraduate research at both the UC Davis MIND Institute and UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain. I then moved to the University of Cambridge and obtained my PhD in the Department of Psychiatry at the Autism Research Centre with Prof Simon Baron-Cohen. I continued in Cambridge after the PhD, holding post-doctoral fellowships from Jesus College, Cambridge and the British Academy.

 

Selected Peer-Reviewed publications

Lombardo, M. V., Lai, M. C., & Baron-Cohen, S. (in press). Big data approaches to decomposing heterogeneity across the autism spectrum. Molecular Psychiatry.

Lombardo, M. V., Pramparo, T., Gazestani, V., Warrier, V, Bethlehem, R. A. I., Carter Barnes, C., Lopez, L., Lewis, N. E., Eyler, L., Pierce, K., & Courchesne, E. (2018). Large-scale associations between the leukocyte transcriptome and BOLD responses to speech differ in autism early language outcome subtypes. Nature Neuroscience, 21, 1680-1688.

Lai, M. C.*, Lombardo, M. V.*, Chakrabarti, B., Ruigrok, A. N. V., Bullmore, E. T., Suckling, J., Auyeung, B., Happe, F., Szatmari, P., MRC AIMS Consortium, & Baron-Cohen, S. (in press). Neural self-representation in autistic women and association with 'compensatory camouflaging'. Autism. * = Joint first authorship for equal contributions.

Courchesne, E., Pramparo, T., Gazestani, V., Lombardo, M. V., Pierce, K., & Lewis. N. E. (in press). The ASD living biology: From cell proliferation to clinical phenotype. Molecular Psychiatry. doi:10.1038/s41380-018-0056-y

Lombardo, M. V., Auyeung, B., Pramparo, T., Quartier, A., Courraud, J., Holt, R. J., Waldman, J., Ruigrok, A. N. V., Mooney, N., Bethlehem, R. A. I., Lai, M. C., Kundu, P., Bullmore, E. T., Mandel, J. L., Piton, A., & Baron-Cohen, S. (in press). Sex-specific impact of prenatal androgens on intrinsic functional connectivity between social brain default mode subsystems. Molecular Psychiatry.

Lombardo, M. V., Moon, H. M., Su J., Palmer, T. D., Courchesne, E., & Pramparo, T. (2018). Maternal immune activation dysregulation of the fetal brain transcriptome and relevance to the pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorder. Molecular Psychiatry, 23, 1001-1013.

Lai, M. C., Lombardo, M. V., Ruigrok, A. N. V., Chakrabarti, B., Auyeung, B., MRC AIMS Consortium, Szatmari, P., Happe, F., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2017). Quantifying and exploring 'camouflaging' in men and women with autism.  Autism, 21, 690-702.

Lombardo, M. V., Courchesne, E., Lewis, N. E., & Pramparo, T. (2017). Hierarchical cortical transcriptome disorganization in autism. Molecular Autism, 8, 29.

Bethlehem, R, A. I*, Lombardo, M. V.*, Lai, M. C., Auyeung, B., Crockford, S. K., Deakin, J., Soubramanian, S., Sule, A., Kundu, P., Voon, V., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2017). Oxytocin enhances intrinsic corticostriatal functional connectivity in women. Translational Psychiatry, 7, e1099. * = Joint first authorship for equal contributions.

Lombardo, M. V., Auyeung, B., Holt, R., Waldman, J., Ruigrok, A., Bullmore, E. T., Baron-Cohen, S., & Kundu, P. (2016). Improving effect size and power with multi-echo fMRI and its impact on understanding the neural systems supporting mentalizing.  Neuroimage, 142, 55-66.

Lombardo, M. V.*, Lai, M. C.*, Auyeung, B., Holt, R. J., Allison, C., Smith, P., Chakrabarti, B., Ruigrok, A. N. V., Suckling, J., Bullmore, E. T., MRC AIMS Consortium, Ecker, C., Craig M. C., Murphy, D. G. M., Happe, F., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2016). Unsupervised data-driven stratification of mentalizing heterogeneity in autism. Scientific Reports, 6, 35333. * = Joint first authorship for equal contributions. 

Griffin, C., Lombardo, M. V., & Auyeung, B. (2016).  Alexithymia in children with and without autism spectrum disorders. Autism Research, 9, 773-780.

Lombardo, M. V., Pierce, K., Eyler, L., Carter Barnes, C., Ahrens-Barbeau, C., Solso, S., Campbell, K., & Courchesne, E. (2015).  Different functional neural substrates for good and poor language outcome in autism.  Neuron, 86, 567-577. 

Baron-Cohen, S.*, Auyeung, B., Nørgaard-Pedersen, B., Hougaard, D. M., Abdallah, M. W., Melgaard, L., Cohen, A. S., Chakrabarti, B., Ruta, L., & Lombardo, M. V.* (2015).  Elevated fetal steroidogenic activity in autism. Molecular Psychiatry, 20, 369-376.  * = equal first author contributions. 

Pramparo, T., Pierce, K., Lombardo, M. V., Carter Barnes, C., Marinero, S., Ahrens-Barbeau, C., Murray, S., Lopez, L., Xu, R., & Courchesne, E. (2015).  Translation and immune/inflammation co-expressed genes predict autism in infants and toddlers from pediatric community practices. JAMA Psychiatry, 72, 386-394.

Pramparo, T., Lombardo, M. V., Campbell, K., Carter Barnes, C., Marinero, S., Solso, S., Young, J., Mayo, M., Dale, A., Ahrens-Barbeau, C., Murray, S. S., Lopez, L., Lewis, N., Pierce, K., & Courchesne, E. (2015).  Cell cycle networks link gene expression dysregulation, mutation and brain maldevelopment in autistic toddlers. Molecular Systems Biology, 11, 841.

Lai, M. C., Lombardo, M. V., Ecker, C., Chakrabarti, B., Suckling, J., Bullmore, E. T., Happe, F., MRC AIMS Consortium, Murphy, D. G. M., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2015).  Neuroanatomy of individual differences in language in adult males with autism. Cerebral Cortex, 25, 3616-3628.

Lai, M. C., Lombardo, M. V., Auyeung, B., Chakrabarti, B., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2015).  Sex/gender differences and autism:  Setting the scene for future research. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 54, 11-24.

Auyeung, B., Lombardo, M. V., Heinrichs, M., Chakrabarti, B., Sule, A., Rayment, D., Deakin, J., Dickens, L., Bethlehem R., Mooney, N., Sipple, J., Thiemann, P., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2015).  Oxytocin increases eye contact during a real-time, naturalistic social interaction in males with and without autism. Translational Psychiatry, 5, e507.

Lai, M. C., Lombardo, M. V., Baron-Cohen, S. (2014).  Autism.  Lancet, 383, 896-910. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61539-1.

Lai, M. C., Lombardo, M. V., Chakrabarti, B., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2013). Subgrouping the autism spectrum:  Reflections on DSM-5. PLoS Biology, 11(4), e1001544.

Baron-Cohen, S., Tager-Flusberg, H., & Lombardo, M. V. (2013). Understanding other minds (3rd ed):  Perspectives from Developmental Social Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

Lai, M. C.*, Lombardo, M. V.*, Suckling, J., Ruigrok, A. N. V., Chakrabarti, B., Ecker, C., Deoni, S. C., Craig, M. C., Murphy, D. G. M., Bullmore, E. T., MRC AIMS Consortium, & Baron-Cohen, S. (2013). Biological sex affects the neurobiology of autism. Brain, 136, 2799-2815. * = Joint first authorship for equal contributions.

Auyeung, B., Lombardo, M. V., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2013). Prenatal and postnatal hormone effects on the human brain and cognition. Pflügers Archiv European Journal of Physiology, 465, 557-571.

Lombardo, M. V., Ashwin, E., Auyeung, B., Chakrabarti, B., Taylor, K., Hackett, G., Bullmore, E. T., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2012). Fetal testosterone influences sexually dimorphic gray matter in the human brain. Journal of Neuroscience, 32, 674-680. 

Lombardo, M. V., Ashwin, E., Auyeung, B., Chakrabarti, B., Lai, M. C., Taylor, K., Hackett, G., Bullmore, E. T., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2012). Fetal programming effects of testosterone on the reward system and behavioral approach tendencies in humans. Biological Psychiatry, 72, 839-847.

Lombardo, M. V., Chakrabarti, B., Lai, M. C., MRC AIMS Consortium, & Baron-Cohen, S. (2012). Self-referential and social cognition in a case of autism and agenesis of the corpus callosum. Molecular Autism, 3, 14.

Baron-Cohen, S., Lombardo, M. V., Auyeung, B., Ashwin, E., Chakrabarti, B., & Knickmeyer, R. (2011). Why are autism spectrum conditions more prevalent in males.  PLoS Biology, 9(6), e1001081.

Lombardo, M. V., Chakrabarti, B., Bullmore, E. T., MRC AIMS Consortium, & Baron-Cohen, S. (2011). Specialization of right temporo-parietal junction for mentalizing and its relation to social impairments in autism.  Neuroimage, 56, 1832-1838.

Lombardo, M. V. & Baron-Cohen, S. (2011). The role of the self in mindblindness in autism.  Consciousness and Cognition, 20, 130-140.

Lombardo, M. V. & Baron-Cohen, S. (2010).  Unraveling the paradox of the autistic self.  WIREs Cognitive Science, 1, 393-403.

Chura, L. R.*, Lombardo, M. V.*, Ashwin, E., Auyeung, B., Chakrabarti, B., Bullmore, E. T., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2010).  Organizational effects of fetal testosterone on human corpus callosum size and asymmetry.  Psychoneuroendocrinology, 35, 122-132. * = Joint first authorship for equal contributions.

Lombardo, M. V., Chakrabarti, B., Bullmore, E. T., Sadek, S. A., Pasco, G., Wheelwright, S. J., Suckling, J., MRC AIMS Consortium, & Baron-Cohen, S. (2010).  Atypical neural self-representation in autism.  Brain, 133, 611-624.

Lombardo, M. V., Chakrabarti, B., Bullmore, E. T., Wheelwright, S. J., Sadek, S. A., Suckling, J., MRC AIMS Consortium, & Baron-Cohen, S. (2010).  Shared neural circuits for mentalizing about the self and others.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 1623-1635.

Lombardo, M. V., Barnes, J. L., Wheelwright, S. J., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2007).  Self-referential cognition and empathy in autism.  PLoS One, 2(9), e883.