Advanced Cognitive Neuroscience

This project uses an experimental protocol that (a) will activate the cortico-limbic circuit that has been implicated in ASD and is known to systematically vary depending on functional variation in 5-HTTLPR and (b) can be readily implemented in each of the three major imaging modalities.  The project team will compare ASDs in control adolescents and young adults in this protocol utilizing three different imaging technologies fMRI, ERP and MEG. The goals of this study are to investigate:

• processing of social-affective stimuli in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) using multimodal functional imaging methods, and
  
  
• genetic effects on brain function in ASD in order to identify interconnections between genes, brain and behavior (working with the gene-finding workgroup).

This will be the first multimodal imaging project in ASD combining 3 key modalities: fMRI, ERP, and MEG which together will provide both rich spatial and detailed temporal information about how people with ASD process social-affective information. The project will be performed across four institutions: 

• Boston University School of Medicine
  
• Children’s Hospital Boston
  
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  
• Massachusetts General Hospital