Social functioning and brain structure in adolescents and young adults with isolated cleft lip and palate

Abstract

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. Lyall Watson iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work would not have been possible without the help and support of many people. First, I would like to thank my mentor Peg Nopoulos for her excellent guidance throughout my graduate career. Dr. Nopoulos gave me a lot of freedom to develop my ideas, and she provided me with the recourses to make this happen. I am very thankful that I had the pleasure to have her as my mentor. In addition, Sonia Slevinski played a pivotal role in getting the participants for this study. She runs the longitudinal study and without her I would not have had any MRI scans. Sonia worked very hard to make sure that I had 40 well-matched participants in this study, for which I am very thankful. Another person who ran the extra mile to get things done in a timely fashion is Chelsea Bilskemper. She manually traced the vermis for the great majority of my sample. Furthermore, I would like to thank Eric Axelson, who made sure that the brain data was ready to analyze. More in general, I would like to thanks all my colleagues in the Nopoulos' lab for making graduate school so pleasant, and providing a friendly and stimulating environment. In addition, Kuan-Hua Chen played a very important role in getting one of the main experiments for this study up and running. He also helped out with testing if necessary. Kuan helped me enormously, for which I am very grateful. Of course, this study would not have been possible without the participants, who voluntarily sat through three hours of testing with me. I learned a lot from meeting the patients and their parents, and I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to test these people. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my family, including my mom and dad Ada and Cees van der Plas, my brother Kees and his wife Henriette van der Plas, my v sister Corine van der Plas and her partner Niels Lieverse, and of course my little nephews Christian and Fabian van der Plas. I have the best family someone can wish for, and although they were not always sure what exactly I was doing in Iowa, they were always very proud. They did not like it very much that I left my country for pursuing my career, but they were nevertheless always supportive. Christian and Fabian are simply a delight, and skyping with them made things always look sunnier. Finally, my husband and colleague, Tim Koscik, deserves a big thank you. Not only did he provide the sometimes much needed emotional support, but he also helped me develop the behavioral tasks used in this study. In addition, Tim helped me write scripts that made it possible to analyze some of the more tricky data in this study. He also made sure he was close by when I tested on evenings or weekends, just in case I needed him. In other words, Tim helped me whenever I needed it, and lot of this work would not have been possible without his help and support. vi ABSTRACT Social isolation is commonly reported in individuals with isolated cleft lip an...