Project description

Our project studies the unique aspects of the brains of autistic people, in both structure and function. These aspects could explain the particular cognitive strengths we see in autism, as well as the greater susceptibility of certain groups to develop autism- for example, men compared to women.

To study these modifications, we use various imaging techniques (MRI, MEG) and analyzes of activation of brain structures and connectivity. We are particularly interested in brain plasticity, that is, the brain's ability to adapt to its environment or to new learning, and how it may differ in autism. More recently, thanks to advances in the field of computational psychiatry, brain behavior models have made it possible to elaborate specific hypotheses about perception in autism. These models have been confronted with neurophysiology (MEG) data in autistic people and non-autistic people.

According to the well-documented hypothesis of the predictive (or Bayesian) brain, the brain is constantly building representations of its environment (perception) which depends on sensory signals and preconceived ideas (based on past learning). Thanks to innovative experimental paradigms, we hope to be able to show that, contrary to many hypotheses put forward in the scientific literature, autistic people do not present a general deficit of prediction. Instead, we predict that autistic people present with differences in the fine levels of perception, for example in the way in which new sensory information, patterns or variability in the environment are processed and integrated by the brain over time.