Charles A. Nelson III is an American neuroscientist and psychologist. [1] Dr. Nelson is particularly interested in both genetic and environmental factors that can alter the course of brain development. Here he has paid particular attention to the role of experience in influencing the course of early brain development. In the first half of his career he studied the neural correlates and developmental course of face and facial emotion processing. Later in his career he turned his attention to studies of children growing up exposed to high levels of stress and adversity. Examples include his collaborative work (with Drs. Nathan A. Fox, PhD, University of Maryland, and Charles H. Zeanah, MD, Tulane University) in Romania (Bucharest Early Intervention Project - BEIP), [2] and work in Dhaka, Bangladesh (Bangladesh Early Adversity Neuroimaging – BEAN – project). [3] In this work he has identified critical periods that have a profound effect on whether early experience has a positive or negative impact on the course of development.
Contents
- Early career
- Nelson Lab Studies
- Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP)
- Bangladesh Early Adversity Project (BEAN)
- Emotion Project
- Infant Screening Project (ISP)
- Bibliography
- Peer-reviewed journal articles
- Books
- Essays and reporting
- References
- External links
A second manifestation of his interest in factors that can undermine healthy brain development is his work on trajectories to autism. Here he has focused on the use of EEG in identifying neural “signatures” in the first half year of life that are associated with autism outcomes at 2 and 3 years of age. One line of work, in collaboration with Helen Tager Flusberg, PhD (Boston University), has focused on infants with an older sibling with autism (Infant Sibling Project – ISP) [4] . Such “infant sibs” have a 20% elevated likelihood of developing autism. A more recent study (in collaboration with Carol Wilkinson, MD,Ph.D., focuses on how EEG obtained in infancy can be used to predict a variety of developmental outcomes (including autism). This project takes place in a primary care setting that serves disproportionately low-income families and infants exposed to high levels of stress and adversity.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Nelson has worked extensively with print, radio, internet and television media to talk about my work; he has also given major talks to governments all over the world about the role of experience in influencing the course of human brain development, including Senate and Congressional testimony in the US and many foreign governments.
Dr. Nelson has also played leadership roles in multiple large-scale projects and endeavors; for example, from 1997-2005 he chaired the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation research network on early experience and brain development and he current serves as co-director of the coordinating council that oversees the NIH-funded Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD study) [5] .
Dr. Nelson is a Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience and a Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Education at Harvard University, and a Professor in the Department of Society, Human Development and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. [6] Nelson is the Director of Research in the Division of Developmental Medicine, Director of the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience and the Richard David Scott Chair in Pediatric Developmental Medicine Research at Boston Children's Hospital. [7] His research interests center on a variety of problems in developmental cognitive neuroscience including: the development of social perception; developmental trajectories to autism; and the effects of early adversity on brain and behavioral development. He chaired the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development (funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation) [8] and served on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panels that wrote From Neurons to Neighborhoods, [9] and New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research. Among his many honors he has received the Leon Eisenberg award from Harvard Medical School, an honorary Doctorate from Bucharest University (Romania), was a resident fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio (Italy) Center, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, [10] the British Academy [11] and along with Professors Fox and Zeanah has received the Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. [12] In 2021 he received the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize. [13]
