Eric Nelson, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Biobehavioral Health at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a Professor of Pediatrics in The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Nelson’s research program is focused on understanding how the development of brain systems involved in social cognition and social emotion are impacted by a variety of chronic health conditions in children. These include psychiatric disorders like anxiety and depression; neurological disorders such as epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, and cancer; and chronic diseases such as heart and digestive disorders that often include disruption of normal social behavior in childhood. The primary methods of investigation are functional and structural neuroimaging (fMRI), intracranial EEG, eye-tracking, and performance on computer based tasks.
Dr. Nelson received a PhD in behavioral neuroscience and psychology at Bowling Green State University, and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Indiana University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Dr. Nelson worked at the intramural program of the National Institute of Mental Health, where he conducted functional neuroimaging studies of children and adolescents with social anxiety disorder.
Publications
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Morningstar M, Thomas P, Anderson AM, Mattson WI, Nahata L, Leibowitz SF, Chen D, Strang JF, Nelson EE. Exogenous testosterone administration is associated with differential neural response to unfamiliar peer's and own caregiver's voice in transgender adolescents. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2023 Feb; 59: 101194.
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Strang JF, McClellan LS, Li S, Jack AE, Wallace GL, McQuaid GA, Kenworthy L, Anthony LG, Lai MC, Pelphrey KA, Thalberg AE, Nelson EE, Phan JM, Sadikova E, Fischbach AL, Thomas J, Vaidya CJ. The autism spectrum among transgender youth: default mode functional connectivity. Cereb Cortex. 2023 Jan 31;
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Strang JF, Wallace GL, Michaelson JJ, Fischbach AL, Thomas TR, Jack A, Shen J, Chen D, Freeman A, Knauss M, Corbett BA, Kenworthy L, Tishelman AC, Willing L, McQuaid GA, Nelson EE, Toomey RB, McGuire JK, Fish JN, Leibowitz SF, Nahata L, Anthony LG, Slesaransky-Poe G, D'Angelo L, Clawson A, Song AD, Grannis C, Sadikova E, Pelphrey KA, Gendaar Consortium, Mancilla M, McClellan LS, Csumitta KD, Winchenbach MR, Jilla A, Alemi F, Yang JS. The Gender Self-Report: A multidimensional gender characterization tool for gender-diverse and cisgender youth and adults. Am Psychol. 2023 Jan 30;
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Grannis C, Hung A, French RC, Mattson WI, Fu X, Hoskinson KR, Gerry Taylor H, Nelson EE. Multimodal classification of extremely preterm and term adolescents using the fusiform gyrus: A machine learning approach. Neuroimage Clin. 2022 Jun 4; 35: 103078.
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Fu X, Hung A, de Silva AD, Busch T, Mattson WI, Hoskinson KR, Taylor HG, Nelson EE. Development of the Mentalizing Network Structures and Theory of Mind in Extremely Preterm Youth. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2022 Apr 16;
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Morningstar M, Mattson WI, Nelson EE. Longitudinal Change in Neural Response to Vocal Emotion in Adolescence. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2022 Mar 22;
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Morningstar M, Grannis C, Mattson WI, Nelson EE. Functional patterns of neural activation during vocal emotion recognition in youth with and without refractory epilepsy. Neuroimage Clin. 2022; 34: 102966.
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Grannis C, Leibowitz SF, Gahn S, Nahata L, Morningstar M, Mattson WI, Chen D, Strang JF, Nelson EE. Testosterone treatment, internalizing symptoms, and body image dissatisfaction in transgender boys. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2021 Oct; 132: 105358.
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Hung A, Morningstar M, Mattson WI, Saygin ZM, Nelson EE. Atypical age-related changes in the structure of the mentalizing network in children with refractory focal epilepsy. Epilepsy Res. 2021 Sep; 175: 106701.
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Morningstar M, French RC, Mattson WI, Englot DJ, Nelson EE. Social brain networks: Resting-state and task-based connectivity in youth with and without epilepsy. Neuropsychologia. 2021 Jul 16; 157: 107882.
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Strang JF, Chen D, Nelson E, Leibowitz SF, Nahata L, Anthony LG, Song A, Grannis C, Graham E, Henise S, Vilain E, Sadikova E, Freeman A, Pugliese C, Khawaja A, Maisashvili T, Mancilla M, Kenworthy L. Transgender Youth Executive Functioning: Relationships with Anxiety Symptoms, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Gender-Affirming Medical Treatment Status. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2021 Jun 19;
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Morningstar M, Mattson WI, Singer S Jr, Venticinque JS, Nelson EE. Children and adolescents' neural response to emotional faces and voices: Age-related changes in common regions of activation. Soc Neurosci. 2020 Dec; 15: 613-629.
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Morningstar M, Hung A, Grannis C, French RC, Mattson WI, Ostendorf AP, Gedela S, Englot DJ, Nelson EE. Blunted neural response to emotional faces in the fusiform and superior temporal gyrus may be marker of emotion recognition deficits in pediatric epilepsy. Epilepsy Behav. 2020 Nov; 112: 107432.
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Smith AR, Nelson EE, Kircanski K, Rappaport BI, Do QB, Leibenluft E, Pine DS, Jarcho JM. Social anxiety and age are associated with neural response to social evaluation during adolescence. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2020 Apr; 42: 100768.
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Nahata L, Chen D, Quinn GP, Travis M, Grannis C, Nelson E, Tishelman AC. Reproductive Attitudes and Behaviors Among Transgender/Nonbinary Adolescents. J Adolesc Health. 2020 Mar; 66: 372-374.
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Morningstar M, Hung A, Mattson WI, Gedela S, Ostendorf AP, Nelson EE. Internalizing symptoms in intractable pediatric epilepsy: Structural and functional brain correlates. Epilepsy Behav. 2020 Feb; 103: 106845.
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Chen D, Strang JF, Kolbuck VD, Rosenthal SM, Wallen K, Waber DP, Steinberg L, Sisk CL, Ross J, Paus T, Mueller SC, McCarthy MM, Micevych PE, Martin CL, Kreukels BPC, Kenworthy L, Herting MM, Herlitz A, Haraldsen IRJH, Dahl R, Crone EA, Chelune GJ, Burke SM, Berenbaum SA, Beltz AM, Bakker J, Eliot L, Vilain E, Wallace GL, Nelson EE, Garofalo R. Consensus Parameter: Research Methodologies to Evaluate Neurodevelopmental Effects of Pubertal Suppression in Transgender Youth. Transgend Health. 2020; 5: 246-257.
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Jarcho JM, Grossman HY, Guyer AE, Quarmley M, Smith AR, Fox NA, Leibenluft E, Pine DS, Nelson EE. Connecting Childhood Wariness to Adolescent Social Anxiety through the Brain and Peer Experiences. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2019 Jul; 47: 1153-1164.
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Krishnamurthy R, Wang DJJ, Cervantes B, McAllister A, Nelson E, Karampinos DC, Hu HH. Recent Advances in Pediatric Brain, Spine, and Neuromuscular Magnetic Resonance Imaging Techniques. Pediatr Neurol. 2019 Jul; 96: 7-23.
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Clarkson T, Eaton NR, Nelson EE, Fox NA, Leibenluft E, Pine DS, Heckelman AC, Sequeira SL, Jarcho JM. Early childhood social reticence and neural response to peers in preadolescence predict social anxiety symptoms in midadolescence. Depress Anxiety. 2019 May 29;
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Fu X, Nelson EE, Borge M, Buss KA, Pérez-Edgar K. Stationary and ambulatory attention patterns are differentially associated with early temperamental risk for socioemotional problems: Preliminary evidence from a multimodal eye-tracking investigation. Dev Psychopathol. 2019 May 17; 1-18.
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Morningstar M, Dirks MA, Rappaport BI, Pine DS, Nelson EE. Associations Between Anxious and Depressive Symptoms and the Recognition of Vocal Socioemotional Expressions in Youth. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol. 2019 May-Jun; 48: 491-500.
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Rosen D, Price RB, Ladouceur CD, Siegle GJ, Hutchinson E, Nelson EE, Stroud LR, Forbes EE, Ryan ND, Dahl RE, Silk JS. Attention to Peer Feedback Through the Eyes of Adolescents with a History of Anxiety and Healthy Adolescents. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2019 Apr 26;
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Morningstar M, Grannis C, Mattson WI, Nelson EE. Associations Between Adolescents' Social Re-orientation Toward Peers Over Caregivers and Neural Response to Teenage Faces. Front Behav Neurosci. 2019; 13: 108.
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Morningstar M, Venticinque J, Nelson EE. Differences in adult and adolescent listeners' ratings of valence and arousal in emotional prosody. Cogn Emot. 2018 Dec 25; 1-8.
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Morningstar M, Nelson EE, Dirks MA. Maturation of vocal emotion recognition: Insights from the developmental and neuroimaging literature. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2018 Jul; 90: 221-230.
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Smith AR, Nelson EE, Rappaport BI, Pine DS, Leibenluft E, Jarcho JM. I Like Them…Will They Like Me? Evidence for the Role of the Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex During Mismatched Social Appraisals in Anxious Youth. J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol. 2018 May 24;
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Stojek M, Shank LM, Vannucci A, Bongiorno DM, Nelson EE, Waters AJ, Engel SG, Boutelle KN, Pine DS, Yanovski JA, Tanofsky-Kraff M. A systematic review of attentional biases in disorders involving binge eating. Appetite. 2018 Apr 1; 123: 367-389.
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