Dr Liliana Ruta

Child Psychiatrist, Italian National Research Council

Dr Liliana Ruta is an Honorary Research Associate at the Autism Research Centre. She graduated in Medicine and Surgery and then specialized in Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry at the University of Catania, Italy. She obtained her PhD in Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry at the University of Catania, Sicily, and spent the year of 2007 as visiting researcher at the ARC, focusing on sex differences in psychological and cognitive profile in autism spectrum conditions (ASC) and the underlying hormonal profiles and molecular signatures, with a specific focus on the neuroendocrinology of ASC. In Sicily Liliana investigated the clinical, hormonal and molecular profile at puberty in Sicilian children with ASC, validating the Italian Autism Spectrum Quotient, Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient and conducting a cross-cultural confirmation of the broader autism phenotype.