Idiosyncratic processing of complex information in autism

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social communication deficits, restricted interests and repetitive behaviours. Accumulating evidence suggests neuroimaging to have a great potential in clarifying the neurological bases of ASD. In this project we will use magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate the neuromagnetic mechanisms of information processing in typical and autistic brain during movie watching. The MEG data will be collected at the primary university and analyzed at the host university. We will test the hypothesis that autistic brain processes the information in more individualistic way, thus the variability between ASD participants in brain response to the same information will be higher than in typical participants. Such idiosyncrasy of ASD brain could potentially reflect the heterogeneity of the ASD population and aid new classification development. We will also explore the link between the idiosyncrasy of brain response and ASD symptoms severity.

Faculty Supervisor:

Sam M Doesburg

Student:

Partner:

Harvard University

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

Simon Fraser University

Program: