Iria Helena Duarte

International Academy of Neurosciences, Spain

Title: Inside the Autistic Brain: Neuroscience Insights into Emotional Self-Regulation and Its Clinical Implications.

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Biography

Iria Helena Duarte is a Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscientist and Neurostrategist whose work bridges neuroscience, cognitive behavioral therapy, and practical strategies for individuals and organizations. With professional experience across Brazil and Europe, she focuses on translating scientific knowledge into evidence-informed approaches for mental well-being, behavioral leadership, resilience, and strategic decision-making.

She serves as Scientific Director of the International Academy of Neurosciences (IAN) in Spain, where she contributes to the development of protocols integrating scientific rigor with clinical and practical applications. Her expertise includes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, clinical neuroscience, neuropsychology, neuropsychopedagogy, psychopedagogy, emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and behavioral neuroscience.

She has pursued extensive academic and professional training, including studies and certifications in neuroscience, mental health, higher education, neuromarketing, strategic marketing, human resources, and communication. Her multidisciplinary background enables her to connect scientific research with education, clinical practice, leadership, and organizational strategy.

Through her Strategic Brain approach, She seeks to help individuals understand behavioral patterns, strengthen emotional regulation, develop resilience, and make more effective decisions. Her work reflects a commitment to applying neuroscience and behavioral science to meaningful personal and professional outcomes.

Abstract

Emotional dysregulation is one of the most common and clinically significant challenges reported among autistic individuals, often manifesting as meltdowns, shutdowns, heightened anxiety, or prolonged difficulty recovering from emotional overload. While these behaviors are frequently interpreted through a purely behavioral lens, growing evidence from behavioral neuroscience suggests that these difficulties may be associated with distinct neurobiological and neurocognitive processes, including atypical interoceptive awareness, altered connectivity between limbic and prefrontal regions, sensory processing differences, and difficulties in emotional granularity. This presentation examines what may be happening in the brains of autistic individuals during emotional dysregulation, exploring why many struggle to recognize, process, and regulate internal emotional states before they escalate into crisis. Integrating findings from behavioral neuroscience with insights from clinical experience across the lifespan, this talk discusses how understanding these neurobiological and neurocognitive mechanisms can inform clinical practice, expanding the focus beyond managing external behavior to also supporting the processes involved in self-regulation, within a person-centred framework. The presentation also introduces an ongoing multi-country research initiative across Brazil, Spain, and Portugal, aimed at translating these principles into practical resources for clinical and everyday use by clinicians, educators, and families supporting autistic individuals, such as Neuro-Pocket, a card-based resource still in early-stage research and development. This initiative reflects a broader effort to ensure that advances in behavioral neuroscience are not confined to academic settings but are actively translated into practical, everyday resources that clinicians and families can use to support emotional self-regulation. By connecting neuroscientific understanding with compassionate, individualized care, this presentation aims to contribute to a more integrated approach to autism support, in which emotional self-regulation difficulties are understood not merely as a behavioral shortcoming, but as reflecting underlying neurodevelopmental processes that warrant scientific and clinical attention.