Laboratory Address:
Laboratory Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center Los Angeles, CA 90095 UNITED STATES
Office Address:
Office Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center 660 Charles E. Young Drive South Los Angeles, CA 90095 UNITED STATES
Work Phone Number:
310-206-2960
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My main research interests focus on the neural representation of language and social cognition. Using neuroimaging techniques (functional MRI, and, more recently, structural MRI and event related potentials, ERP), my research seeks to (1) delineate how brain maturation and the development of language and social cognition co-occur in the typically developing brain, (2) qualify the patterns of brain dysfunction in developmental disorders such as autism, childhood onset schizophrenia, and dyslexia, and (3) examine the neural basis of linguistic and communicative functions in the adult brain since studies on adults provide a normative developmental endpoint for our developmental investigations and can also address issues of brain plasticity.
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Dr. Dapretto is a developmental neuroscientist presently appointed as Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. She received a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the UCLA Psychology Department, specializing in language development, in 1994. As a postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA Brain Mapping Center, and under the guidance of Dr. Susan Bookheimer, Dr. Dapretto acquired expertise in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and conducted a number of studies on the neural basis of language processing in both children and adults, including a study on the neural basis of syntax and semantics published in Neuron. Dr. Dapretto has been the recipient of several awards, including an NIH award to study the neural systems associated with language functions in a sample of normally developing children, and several grants (funded by the Cure Autism Now foundation, the UC DAvis M.I.N.D. Research Institute, the National Alliance for Autism Research, and Autism Speaks) designed to investigate the neural basis of the persistent socio-communicative impairments observed in autism. Dr. Dapretto is also the Principal Investigator of the imaging project within the NIH funded UCLA Autism Center of Excellence. Some of her studies in autism have recently been published in Nature Neuroscience, Brain, and Archives of General Psychiatry.
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Pfeifer, J. H. Iacoboni, M. Mazziotta, J. C. Dapretto, M. Mirroring others' emotions relates to empathy and interpersonal competence in children.
Neuroimage.
2008; 39( 4):
2076-85.
Wang, A. T. Lee, S. S. Sigman, M. Dapretto, M. Reading affect in the face and voice: neural correlates of interpreting communicative intent in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders.
Arch Gen Psychiatry.
2007; 64( 6):
698-708.
Pfeifer, J. H. Lieberman, M. D. Dapretto, M. "I know you are but what am I?!": neural bases of self- and social knowledge retrieval in children and adults.
J Cogn Neurosci.
2007; 19( 8):
1323-37.
Wang, A. T. Lee, S. S. Sigman, M. Dapretto, M. Neural basis of irony comprehension in children with autism: the role of prosody and context.
Brain.
2006; 129( Pt 4):
932-43.
Iacoboni, M. Dapretto, M. The mirror neuron system and the consequences of its dysfunction.
Nat Rev Neurosci.
2006; 7( 12):
942-51.
Dapretto, M. Davies, M. S. Pfeifer, J. H. Scott, A. A. Sigman, M. Bookheimer, S. Y. Iacoboni, M. Understanding emotions in others: mirror neuron dysfunction in children with autism spectrum disorders.
Nat Neurosci.
2006; 9( 1):
28-30.
Lee, S. S. Dapretto, M. Metaphorical vs. literal word meanings: fMRI evidence against a selective role of the right hemisphere.
Neuroimage.
2006; 29( 2):
536-44.
McNealy, K. Mazziotta, J. C. Dapretto, M. Cracking the language code: neural mechanisms underlying speech parsing.
J Neurosci.
2006; 26( 29):
7629-39.
Dapretto, M. Lee, S. S. Caplan, R. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of discourse coherence in typically developing children.
Neuroreport.
2005; 16( 15):
1661-5.
Wang, A. T. Dapretto, M. Hariri, A. R. Sigman, M. Bookheimer, S. Y. Neural correlates of facial affect processing in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry.
2004; 43( 4):
481-90.
Hernandez, A. E. Kotz, S. A. Hofmann, J. Valentin, V. V. Dapretto, M. Bookheimer, S. Y. The neural correlates of grammatical gender decisions in Spanish.
Neuroreport.
2004; 15( 5):
863-6.
Caplan, R. Dapretto, M. Making sense during conversation: an fMRI study.
Neuroreport.
2001; 12( 16):
3625-32.
Hernandez, A. E. Dapretto, M. Mazziotta, J. Bookheimer, S. Language switching and language representation in Spanish-English bilinguals: an fMRI study.
Neuroimage.
2001; 14( 2):
510-20.
Dapretto, M. Bjork, E. L. The development of word retrieval abilities in the second year and its relation to early vocabulary growth.
Child Dev.
2000; 71( 3):
635-48.
Woods, R. P. Dapretto, M. Sicotte, N. L. Toga, A. W. Mazziotta, J. C. Creation and use of a Talairach-compatible atlas for accurate, automated, nonlinear intersubject registration, and analysis of functional imaging data.
Hum Brain Mapp.
1999; 8( 2-3):
73-9.
Dapretto, M. Bookheimer, S. Y. Form and content: dissociating syntax and semantics in sentence comprehension.
Neuron.
1999; 24( 2):
427-32.
Bookheimer, S. Y. Dapretto, M. Karmarkar, U. Functional MRI in children with epilepsy.
Dev Neurosci.
1999; 21( 3-5):
191-9.
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