Penelope Kostopoulos is a research associate at McGill University, in Canada. She was one among the researchers of the study which shows that it is possible to identify which infants, among those with older siblings with autism, will be diagnosed with autism at 24 months of age.

For the study, the researchers conducted MRI scans of infants at six, 12, and 24 months of age. They found that the babies who developed autism experienced a hyper-expansion of brain surface area from six to 12 months, as compared to babies who had an older sibling with autism but did not themselves show evidence of the condition at 24 months of age. Increased growth rate of surface area in the first year of life was linked to increased growth rate of overall brain volume in the second year of life. Brain overgrowth was tied to the emergence of autistic social deficits in the second year.

The researchers found that brain differences at six and 12 months of age in infants with older siblings with autism correctly predicted eight out of ten infants who would later meet criteria for autism at 24 months of age in comparison to those infants with older ASD siblings who did not meet criteria for autism at 24 months.

The Greek researcher received her bachelor from University of Patras in 1999, her M.Sc in Neuroscience from McGill University in 2001 and in 2008 her Ph.D in Neuroscience from the same university.

In 2014, Penelope Kostopoulos became a research associate at McGill University and a year later, in May 2015, a course lecturer at the same university.