Michael V. Lombardo PhD

I direct the Laboratory for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (LAND) at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Rovereto, Italy. Our research melds together psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, genomics, and data science to help aid our understanding of heterogeneity and early developmental mechanisms involved in autism and other types of neurodevelopmental conditions.


More info about some of our past work can be found on the Publications page or on Google Scholar.  For a shorter list of selected publications, see below. 

Key Publications

Lombardo, M. V., Pierce, K., Eyler, L., Carter Barnes, C., Ahrens-Barbeau, C., Solso, S., Campbell, K., & Courchesne, E. (2015).  Different functional neural substrates for good and poor language outcome in autism.  Neuron, 86, 567-577. 


Lombardo, M. V., Pramparo, T., Gazestani, V., Warrier, V, Bethlehem, R. A. I., Carter Barnes, C., Lopez, L., Lewis, N. E., Eyler, L., Pierce, K., & Courchesne, E. (2018). Large-scale associations between the leukocyte transcriptome and BOLD responses to speech differ in autism early language outcome subtypes. Nature Neuroscience, 21, 1680-1688.


Lombardo, M. V., Eyler, L., Moore, A., Datko, M., Carter Barnes, C., Cha, D., Courchesne, E., & Pierce, K. (2019). Default mode-visual network hypoconnectivity in an autism subtype with pronounced social visual engagement difficulties. eLife, 8, e47427.


Lombardo, M. V., Lai, M. C., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2019). Big data approaches to decomposing heterogeneity across the autism spectrum. Molecular Psychiatry, 24, 1435-1450.


Lombardo, M. V., Auyeung, B., Pramparo, T., Quartier, A., Courraud, J., Holt, R. J., Waldman, J., Ruigrok, A. N. V., Mooney, N., Bethlehem, R. A. I., Lai, M. C., Kundu, P., Bullmore, E. T., Mandel, J. L., Piton, A., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2020). Sex-specific impact of prenatal androgens on intrinsic functional connectivity between social brain default mode subsystems. Molecular Psychiatry, 25, 2175-2188.


Trakoshis, S., Martinez-Canada, P., Rocchi, F., Canella, C., You, W., Chakrabarti, B., Ruigrok, A. N. V., Bullmore, E. T., Suckling, J., Markicevic, M., Zerbi, V., MRC AIMS Consortium, Baron-Cohen, S., Gozzi, A., Lai, M. C., Panzeri, S., & Lombardo, M. V. (2020). Intrinsic excitation-inhibition imbalance affects medial prefrontal cortex differently in autistic men versus women. eLife, 9, e55684.


Lombardo, M. V., Eyler, L., Pramparo, T., Gazestani, V. H., Hagler, D. J., Chen, C.-H., Dale, A. M., Seidlitz, J., Bethlehem, R. A. I., Bertelsen, N., Carter Barnes, C., Lopez, L., Lewis, N. E., Pierce, K., & Courchesne, E. (2021). Atypical genomic cortical patterning in autism with poor early language outcome. Science Advances, 7, eabh1663.


Lombardo, M. V., Busuoli, E. M., Schreibman, L., Stahmer, A., Pramparo, T., Landi, I., Mandelli, V., Bertelsen, N., Carter Barnes, C., Gazestani, V., Lopez, L., Bacon, E. C., Courchesne, E., & Pierce, K. (2021). Pre-treatment clinical and gene expression patterns predict developmental change in early intervention in autism. Molecular Psychiatry, 26, 7641-7651.


Xiao, Y., Wen, T., Kupis, L., Eyler, L., Goel, D., Vaux, K., Lombardo, M. V., Lewis, N. E., Pierce, K., & Courchesne, E. (2022). Neural responses to affective speech, including motherese, map onto clinical and social eye tracking profiles in toddlers with ASD. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 443-454.


Duan, K., Eyler, L., Pierce, K., Lombardo, M. V., Datko, M., Hagler, D. J., Taluja, V., Zahiri, J., Campbell, K., Carter Barnes, C., Arias, S., Nalabolu, S., Troxel, J., Ji, P., & Courchesne, E. (2024). Differences in regional brain structure in toddlers with autism are related to future language outcomes. Nature Communications, 15, 5075.


Mandelli, V., Landi, I., Busuoli, E. M., Courchesne, E., Pierce, K., & Lombardo, M. V. (2023). Prognostic early snapshot stratification of autism based on adaptive functioning. Nature Mental Health, 1, 327-336.


Lombardo, M. V. & Mandelli, V. (2022). Rethinking our concepts and assumptions about autism. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 903489.


Montani, C., Pagani, M., De Guzman, E., Balasco, L., Alvino, F. G., Felice, A., Galbusera, A., Nickl-Jockschat, T. K., Lau, P., Borsotti, N., Pasqualetti, M., Mattioni, L., Provenzano, G., Bozzi, Y.,  Lombardo, M. V.*, & Gozzi, A.* (2024). Sex-biasing influence of autism-associated Ube3a gene overdosage at connectomic, behavioral and transcriptomic levels. Science Advances, 10, eadg1421. * Shared senior authorship.


Mandelli, V.*, Severino, I.*, Eyler, L., Pierce, K., Courchesne, E., & Lombardo, M. V. (2024). A 3D approach to understanding heterogeneity in early developing autisms. Molecular Autism, 15, 41 * Joint first authorship for equal contributions.


Mandelli, V., Landi, I., Ceccarelli, S. B., Molteni, M., Nobile, M., D'Ausilio, A., Fadiga, L., Crippa, A., & Lombardo, M. V. (2024). Enhanced motor noise in an autism subtype with poor motor skills. Molecular Autism, 15, 36.


Bertelsen, N., Mancini, G., Sastre-Yagüe, D., Vitale, A., Lorenz, G. M., Malerba, S. B., Bolis, D., Mandelli, V., Martínez-Cañada, P., Gozzi, A.*, Panzeri, S.*, & Lombardo, M. V.* Electrophysiologically-defined excitation-inhibition autism neurosubtypes. medRxiv. doi:10.1101/2023.11.22.23298729. * Shared senior authorship.


Crockford, S. K., Satta, E., Severino, I., Fiacchino, D., Vitale, A., Bertelsen, N., Busuoli, E. M., Mandelli, V., & Lombardo, M. V. Detection of idiosyncratic gaze fingerprint signatures in humans. bioRxiv. doi:10.1101/2023.09.18.558217.