Dr. Beth Oakley is a postdoctoral research associate working on the project AIMS -2-TRIALS at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (King’s College London), where she also completed her PhD. Her research focuses on mental health in autism; including its impact on outcomes (e.g. quality of life) and potential underpinning mechanisms (e.g. sensory sensitivities and emotion awareness/ regulation).

In this talk, Beth will present some of her recent work using data from the AIMS Longitudinal European Autism Project – investigating the impact of co-occurring anxiety and depression on quality of life for autistic people and the role of ‘alexithymia’ (difficulties identifying and describing emotion) as a contributing factor for these co-occurring symptoms.

• Speaker: Beth Oakley (King’s College London)
• Monday 01 March 2021, 15:30–16:30
• Venue: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85130861934?pwd=c1l1czdNSFVaUzdtRDRPSlU3Q0VmZz09.
• Series: ARClub Talks; organiser: Elizabeth Weir.

Despite some evidence that autistic individuals may have increased risks of substance use-related problems, there is little existing research on this topic. This talk will focus on new results from a mixed methods study using the Autism and Physical Health Survey Dataset. It employs self-report data from nearly 2,400 autistic and non-autistic individuals (aged 16-90 years) to provide insight into substance use patterns (e.g. binge-drinking, frequent smoking, recreational drug use, etc..), as well as the motivations, attitudes, and experiences of autistic adults regarding substance use.

• Speaker: Elizabeth Weir (University of Cambridge)
• Monday 08 March 2021, 15:30–16:30
• Venue: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85130861934?pwd=c1l1czdNSFVaUzdtRDRPSlU3Q0VmZz09.
• Series: ARClub Talks; organiser: Elizabeth Weir.

My talk will focus on our recent insights into genetic architecture of autism traits in a collection of families of subjects with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability (ID). Deep phenotyping combined with Whole Genome Sequence of ASD families revealed a striking level of clustering of deleterious variants in known ASD -risk genes and genes implicated in synaptic function. I will present a compelling evidence for a joint contribution of the ASD polygenic risk, rare variant burden, and structural variation to the risk for both ASD and sleep disturbances, a common ASD associated co-morbidity.

• Speaker: Maja Bućan, University of Pennsylvania
• Monday 22 March 2021, 15:30–16:30
• Venue: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85130861934?pwd=c1l1czdNSFVaUzdtRDRPSlU3Q0VmZz09.
• Series: ARClub Talks; organiser: Elizabeth Weir.