CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN
COGNITION & NEUROSCIENCES/ConnexConnex

Unravelling the neurodevelopmental bases of high level cognitive functions has increasing importance in translational clinical work. To date, the challenge has been to develop age-appropriate neuroimaging tasks that are suitable for children and that assess complex cognitive abilities such as memory, socio-emotional regulation and executive functions frequently found atypical in neurodevelopmental disorders.
In this talk, I will present examples of functional neuroimaging studies performed during my postdoctoral research in Brussels and Toronto where we investigated such processes in the typically and atypically developing brain. Results show that cerebral functional dissimilarities involve the localisation of functions in the brain, and particularly the timing of the processing which impacts brain connectivity mechanisms. In addition, we will explore how multimodal approaches involving both MRI and MEG analyses may highlight direct associations between structural and functional alterations and their relation to poor behavioural performance in children. Altogether, these studies provide new insights on the cognitive difficulties experienced by clinical populations and may help the development of appropriate clinical care.