Elsa Shapiro, Ph.D., L.P.

Professor, Neuropsychology Director
Mayo Mail Code 486
420 Delaware St. SE
Minneapolis, MN  55455
Phone: (612) 625-7466
Fax: (612) 624-7681
shapi004@umn.edu

Elsa Shapiro, Ph.D., is Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology and the Director of the Pediatric Neuropsychology unit of the Division of Pediatric Neurology.  She is a diplomate of the American Board of Examiners in Professional Psychology.   She has adjunct appoints in the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Child Development, and is a core faculty in the Center for Neurobehavioral development. She obtained her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1965, and took her internship at the Veterans Mental Health Clinic in Washington DC and post-doctoral training at the Children's Hospital of the District of Columbia (now the National Children's Medical Center).  After several years at the University of California at Davis, she returned to the University of Minnesota and developed the Pediatric Neuropsychology program.   She has been interested in teaching and developing a program to train pediatric neuropsychologists to become clinicians and scientists at the practicum, internship, and post-doctoral levels.  She has also been the Interim Director of the Division of Pediatric Clinical Neuroscience, Director of the Autism Spectrum Disorders program,  member of the Committee on Scholastic Standing of the Medical School, and a member on the American Psychological Associations Public Interest Advisory Committee.  She also is an editor for Child Neuropsychology.  She has approximately 70 peer reviewed publications and chapters.

Her current research encompasses three areas:

A.  Childhood dementia in chronic diseases affecting the central nervous system:

One of her contributions has been the characterization of childhood dementia and the neuropsychological profiles of various neurodegenerative storage diseases, untreated and treated. Through her work on a multi-center NIH funded study on adrenoleukodystrophy, participation in the executive committee of the World Organization for Research on Lysosomal diseases, and consultation with Genzyme company to study neuropsychological and quality-of-life effects of enzyme treatment on MPS I she has concentrated on the longitudinal multicenter measurement of the natural history and outcomes after treatment of rare diseases.   In addition, she has March of Dimes grant to study MR spectroscopy using a high field  (4 Tesla) magnet to study the spectra of brain metabolites in affected and unaffected cortical white matter in boys with adrenoleukodystrophy with regard to mechanism, early detection, and effects of treatment. Selected recent publications in this area:

Charnas, L., Ziegler, R., Shapiro, E.,   Pediatric chronic disease. In M. Rizzo & P. Eslinger (Eds.). Principles and Practice of Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychology, Saunders/ Churchill Livingstone/Mosby  In press.

Grewal, S., Shapiro, E., Krivit, W., Charnas, L., Lockman, L., Delaney, K., Davies, S., Wenger, D., Rimmel, F., Abel, S.,  Grovas, A.,  Orchard, P., Wagner, J., and Peters, C., Effective treatment of alpha-mannosidosis by allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant.  In press.

Grewal, S., Shapiro, E., Charnas, L. Orchard, P. and Peters, C.  Continued neurocognitive development and prevention of cardiopulmonary complications after successful BMT for I-cell disease: a long-term follow-up report.  Bone Marrow Transplantation,32, 957-960.

Shapiro, E., Krivit, W., Lockman, L., Jambaqué, I., Peters, C., Cowan, M., Harris, R., Blanche, S., Bordigoni, P., Loes, D., Ziegler, R.,  Crittenden, M., Ris, D., Berg, B., Cox, C., Moser, H.,  Fischer, A., and Aubourg, P. (2000).  Long-term beneficial effect of bone marrow transplantation for childhood onset  cerebral X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy.   Lancet.  356, 713-718.

Shapiro, E. and Balthazor, M.  Metabolic and neurodegenerative disorders of childhood.   In Taylor, G., Ris, D., and Yeates, K.(2000). Pediatric Neuropsychology:  Research, Theory and Practice.  Guilford Press.  Pp. 171-205.

Krivit, W., Shapiro, E., Peters, C., Wagner, J., Cornu, G., Kurtzberg, J., Wenger, D., Kolodny, E., Vanier, M., Loes, D., Dusenbery, K., and Lockman, L. (1998) Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in Globoid Cell Leukodystrophy.  New England Journal of Medicine, 338, 1119-1126.

Peters, C., Shapiro, E. and Krivit, W.  (1998).  Neuropsychological development in children with Hurler syndrome following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.  (Invited editorial).  Pediatric Transplantation, 9:250-253.

B.  The effect of neurotoxic exposure and other factors on cognitive development of high risk children (neurobiological effects of poverty).

She is interested in the effects of environmental neurotoxins as well as other biological and environmental factors on the early development of attention, memory, and behavior in high risk inner city populations. She was the principal investigator of a prospective federally funded 5 year study of the effects of low level lead burden on children’s neuropsychological development.

The DREAMS project funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (DHHS) was a longitudinal study of 281 children from 12 to 48 months with three important features: a) studying the effects of lead overburden on the alteration of the rate (as contrasted with level) of attention and memory development, b) studying the multiple confounding variables that occur in inner city high risk populations, and c) training technicians and staff from the neighborhood to promote participation and involvement.  In addition a study of aggressive behavior and salivary cortisol in these children was funded by the Emma Howe and Minnesota Medical Foundations.  A novel two-factor model of maternal assets and risk factors in combination with composite scores of social risk (low SES, single parent, maternal age under 19) and biomedical risk (birth weight, lead levels, zinc protoporphyrin, months of breast feeding), was used to model the developmental trajectories of a set of child outcomes, including vigilance (early attention)  and mental development. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) demonstrated the relative contribution of these risk variables. These data will be presented at a symposium at the next meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society.

Goldman,D., Shapiro, E, and Nelson, C.A.  Measurement of vigilance in 2-year old children.  Developmental Neuropsychology,  in press.

Jordan, C., Lee, P., and Shapiro, E. (2000) Measuring developmental outcomes of lead in an urban neighborhood:  The challenges of community-based research. Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology.  10, 732-742.

Jordan, C., Robison, S., Roche, B., Hughes, S., Goldman, D., Shapiro, E. Predictors of Sustained Attention Development in Children Under 3 Years of Age.  In preparation..

C.  Autism spectrum disorders

Her current work in this area is with Dr. Kelvin Lim and Dr. Amy Silverman on Diffusion Tensor Imaging in high functioning children on the autism spectrum.

Gurney, J., Fritz, M., Ness, K., Sievers, P., Newschaffer, C., Shapiro, E.   An analysis of prevalence trends of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Minnesota. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 622-627.

Corbett, B., Khan, K., Czapansky-Beilman, D., Brady, N., Dropik, P., Zelinsky-Goldman, D., Delaney, K., Sharp, H., Mueller, I., Shapiro, E., Ziegler, R. (2000). A double blind, placebo-controlled crossover study investigating the effect of porcine secretin on autistic children.  Clinical Pediatrics, 327-331.