Onze beursstudenten

Dokter Linda PIERMATTI

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Project

Neural correlates of multimodal sensory integration in autism spectrum disorder: a magnetoencephalography study on motor resonance and cortical tracking of speech.

Project supervisor

Labo of hospitaal waar het project plaatsvindt

Laboratoire de Cartographie Fonctionnelle du Cerveau (LCFC) now Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie translationnelles (LN2T).

Objectives of research

To bring novel insights into the pathophysiological role of multisensory integration deficits in the alterations in motor action execution/observation and speech production/processing typically observed in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Summary

This project aims to better understand the pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASD corresponds to a weakness in social communication skills, the presence of restricted interests and repetitive behaviours, as well as disturbances in sensory functions.

This project is based on the hypothesis that neurotypical individuals have certain abilities to integrate the multisensory stimuli of everyday life and that these abilities allow them to interact socially in a fluid manner with others. Deficits in multisensory integration have been described in ASD. However, abnormalities in the neural correlates of multisensory integration in the context of higher socio-cognitive functions are poorly characterised in ASD.

This project therefore aims to study the coupling between neocortical activity and multisensory signals using magnetoencephalography. We will study the phenomenon of motor resonance (i.e., the internal and automatic activation of an individual's sensorimotor system when observing the motor actions of another person) and the cortical tracking of heard or self-generated speech (i.e., the correspondence between cortical activity and the time course of hierarchical linguistic units of speech and paralinguistic information such as prosodic cues). We will study two different populations of individuals with ASD (children aged 8-12 years and adolescents/young adults aged 16-25 years) and compare their data with that of matched typically developing subjects.