Lane Strathearn

I am the Physician Director of the Center for Disabilities and Development (CDD) at the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital and codirector of the Hawkeye Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (HawkIDDRC). As a tenured professor of pediatrics with an Endowed Chair in Pediatric Neurodevelopment, I also serve as the Division Director for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. My clinical practice as a developmental pediatrician is focused on the diagnosis and treatment of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including autism. My international training includes a fellowship in child protection and pediatric neurodevelopment in Australia, and a clinical fellowship in developmental pediatrics at Texas Children’s Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine. Both in Australia and the US, I have been involved in longitudinal and clinical science research on the effects of early social experience and attachment on child development. I initially studied parent child attachment using functional MRI, and developed relevant research skills including analysis of functional neuroimaging and eye tracking data. Other research includes a randomized controlled trial of intranasal oxytocin, examining the effects of oxytocin on brain reward and cognitive processing using functional MRI, and eye gaze patterns in children and adolescents with autism. I am currently examining early predictors of autism, as part of a 5 year grant entitled “Epigenetics and Social Experience in Autism: Discovering Modifiable Pathways for Intervention”.