Carissa Cascio
- Professor
- Senior Scientist
Contact Info
Personal Links
Biography —
Dr. Cascio completed a PhD in Neuroscience at Emory University and postdoctoral training in Neurodevelopmental Disorders research at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Cascio joined the faculty in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department at Vanderbilt University in 2007, and in 2025 joined the faculty at the University of Kansas. The Cascio Lab is accepting applications for graduate students through the KU BBQ Program for fall 2026. Contact Dr. Cascio for inquiries.
Education —
Research —
Dr. Cascio’s research program is focused on the link between sensory and affective brain systems and their influence on autism characteristics, including social difficulties, co-occurring medical and psychiatric conditions, and repetitive patterns of behavior. She directs the Laboratory for Affective Sensory Research (LASR), which uses behavioral, neuroimaging, and electrophysiological techniques to understand how basic sensory and limbic neural systems contribute to the complexity of autism and related conditions. The lab is primarily focused on somatic sensory processing, including touch, interoception, pain, and proprioception. She has been PI on multiple federal (NIH) and foundation research grants focused on these topics. The LASR is committed to centering the perspectives of autistic scientists and advocates and adapting conventional laboratory protocols to include a broader range of the autism spectrum.
Selected Publications —
Zoltowski AR, Failla MD, Wu F, Convery CA, Lewis B, Woodward ND, Rogers BP, Cascio CJ. Insular functional connectivity in autistic and non-autistic development. Biol Psychol. 2025 Apr 30:109043. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2025.109043. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40316132.
McGugin RW, Newton AT, Lewis BJ, Convery CA, Eyoh EE, Gauthier I, Cascio CJ. Ultra-high resolution imaging of laminar thickness in face-selective cortex in autism. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2025 Apr 30. doi: 10.3758/s13415-025-01298-w. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40304890.
Zoltowski AR, Convery CA, Eyoh E, Plump E, Sullivan M, Arumalla ER, Quinde-Zlibut JM, Keceli-Kaysili B, Lewis B, Cascio CJ. Sensory Processing and Anxiety: Within and Beyond the Autism Spectrum. Curr Top Behav Neurosci. 2024 Dec 14. doi: 10.1007/7854_2024_557. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39671066.
Bress KS, Cascio CJ. Sensorimotor regulation of facial expression - An untouched frontier. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2024 Jul;162:105684. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105684. Epub 2024 May 6. PMID: 38710425.
Williams ZJ, Schaaf R, Ausderau KK, Baranek GT, Barrett DJ, Cascio CJ, Dumont RL, Eyoh EE, Failla MD, Feldman JI, Foss-Feig JH, Green HL, Green SA, He JL, Kaplan-Kahn EA, Keçeli-Kaysılı B, MacLennan K, Mailloux Z, Marco EJ, Mash LE, McKernan EP, Molholm S, Mostofsky SH, Puts NAJ, Robertson CE, Russo N, Shea N, Sideris J, Sutcliffe JS, Tavassoli T, Wallace MT, Wodka EL, Woynaroski TG. Examining the latent structure and correlates of sensory reactivity in autism: a multi-site integrative data analysis by the autism sensory research consortium. Mol Autism. 2023 Aug 28;14(1):31. doi: 10.1186/s13229-023-00563-4. PMID: 37635263; PMCID: PMC10464466.
Noel JP, Paredes R, Terrebonne E, Feldman JI, Woynaroski T, Cascio CJ, Seriès P, Wallace MT. Inflexible Updating of the Self-Other Divide During a Social Context in Autism: Psychophysical, Electrophysiological, and Neural Network Modeling Evidence. Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 2022 Aug;7(8):756-764. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2021.03.013. Epub 2021 Apr 16. PMID: 33845169; PMCID: PMC8521572.
Zoltowski AR, Lyu I, Failla M, Mash LE, Dunham K, Feldman JI, Woynaroski TG, Wallace MT, Barquero LA, Nguyen TQ, Cutting LE, Kang H, Landman BA, Cascio CJ. Cortical Morphology in Autism: Findings from a Cortical Shape-Adaptive Approach to Local Gyrification Indexing. Cereb Cortex. 2021 Oct 1;31(11):5188-5205. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhab151. PMID: 34195789; PMCID: PMC8491691.
Awards & Honors —
Dr. Cascio's research on the neural basis of sensory experiences in autism has been recognized internationally, and she was awarded the Slikfa Ritvo Innovation in Autism Research Award (2012) for pioneering the study of interoception in autism. Dr. Cascio has also been recognized for outstanding mentorship, including the Vanderbilt Brain Institute Mentor of the Year Award in 2023. She was also an elected member of the board for the Vanderbilt Academy for Excellence in Education.
Service —
Dr. Cascio's local service included work on the Vanderbilt Neuroscience Graduate Program Admissions Committee, serving as chair of multiple dissertation committees, departmental research compliance expert, and associate director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Neuroimaging Core. Her external service includes peer review for multiple journals and NIH study sections.