Howard Gritton
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Neuroscience
Phthalates are chemicals added to plastics to make them flexible and stable. They are found in vinyl flooring, children's toys, personal care products and medical devices, and pregnant women and young children are routinely exposed.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Psychology
- Topics
phthalates
endocrine disrupting compounds
plasticizers
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2029
What they work on
- Test whether developmental phthalate exposure reduces anatomical and functional connectivity among frontal, sensory and limbic brain regions in mice, using whole-brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
- Test whether phthalate-exposed mice investigate other mice less and show weaker dopamine signaling in social reward pathways, using projection-specific fiber photometry during behavior.
- Determine how phthalate exposure changes the hormone, dopamine and cell-signaling gene profiles of limbic regions in juvenile and adult mice, using multi-region high-density transcriptomics.
More about the research
Phthalates belong to a group called endocrine disrupting compounds, chemicals that interfere with the body's hormones. Recent studies link exposure in the womb to more autistic traits, such as social anxiety and communication difficulties. How these chemicals change the developing brain is still largely unknown.
Why it matters
Phthalates are nearly unavoidable in everyday products, and exposure during development has been linked to autistic traits such as reduced communication and social anxiety. Showing how these chemicals alter the brain's social reward circuits could clarify the risks to fetuses and children. It may also guide preventive strategies to protect the developing nervous system.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Johanna Jarcho
Temple University, PA·Psychology
Compare brain responses to social reward (being liked by peers) and non-social reward (winning money) in autistic and neurotypical adolescents aged 10–15, using a purpose-built fMRI feedback task.
Rebecca Schwarzlose
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Neuroscience·Early-career
Test whether neural suppression, the reduced brain response to expected sensations, is weaker in children with sensory over-responsivity, using existing brain imaging data.
Caroline Smith
Boston College, MA·Neuroscience·Early-career
Test whether cross-fostering mouse pups exposed prenatally to diesel exhaust particles and maternal stress prevents shifts in their gut microbiome, measured by metagenomic sequencing.
The school
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: 41 labs on PI Pages, $907M a year on research, 870 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.