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Gregor Kohls, PhD
3535 Market Street
Suite 860
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(267) 426-4926
I am working as a post-doctoral fellow in the Developmental Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Center for Autism Research. My main research focuses on the behavioral, electrophysiological (ERP/EEG), and neural (fMRI) correlates of socially reinforcing stimuli such as facial expressions and their impact on goal-directed, motivated behavior in children and adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Following this scientific approach I aim to find out to what extent the lack of social motivation and interest in ASD is related to a compromised sensitivity to social reward. More specifically, I hypothesize that reward mechanisms (and associated mesolimbic and mesocortical brain areas) that naturally draw the infant’s attention to social incentives might be dysfunctional in children with ASD. Such reward mechanisms normally facilitate the acquisition of knowledge about other people’s social signals.
Another focus of my work in the center is on establishing electrophysiological recordings in order to collect data on face-specific ERP components (e.g., N170) in ASD.
I received my Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in Psychology, German Linguistics, and Educational Sciences in 2006 from the University of Freiburg, Germany. Currently, I am completing and defending my doctoral thesis in medical science (Ph.D.), with a focus on child neuropsychology, at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany.
Publications
Kohls G, Herpertz-Dahlmann B, Konrad K. Hyperresponsiveness to social rewards in children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder performing a response inhibition task. Behavioral and Brain Functions. 2009.
Kohls G, Peltzer J, Herpertz-Dahlmann B, Konrad K. Differential effects of social and non-social reward on response inhibition in children and adolescents. Developmental Science. 2009. 10.1: j.1467-7687.2009.00816.x.
Rinker T, Kohls G, Richter C, Maas V, Hennighausen K, Schecker M. Abnormal frequency discrimination in children with SLI as indexed by mismatch negativity (MMN). Neuroscience Letters. 2007. 413(2): 99-104.
Spreckelmeyer KN, Krach S, Kohls G, Rademacher L, Irmak A, Konrad K, Kircher T, Gründer G. Anticipation of monetary and social reward differently activates the mesolimbic brain structures in men and women. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2009. 10.1: nsn051.
Zachau S, Rinker T, Körner B, Kohls G, Maas V, Hennighausen K, Schecker M. Extracting rules: Early and late MMN to tone patterns. Neuroreport. 2005. 16: 2015-2019.