Assistant Professor of Radiology Harvard Medical School

Investigator, Asst Prof (M) Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Mass General Research Institute

adhd; attention; attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder; autism; autism spectrum disorder; autistic disorder; dyslexia; magnetoencephalography; neural basis of reading; neural basis of semantics; phonetics; phonological processing; reasoning skills; semantic processing; semantics; space perception; specific language impairment; speech perception; verbal memory My research focus is on investigating the neural bases of reading and language processing in children.

We use behavioral, electromagnetic recordings (EEG/MEG) and metabolic (fMRI) methods to study normal and impaired populations on a variety of cognitive tasks including speech perception, phonological processing, verbal memory, attention, semantic processing and reasoning skills. Clinical populations include children with dyslexia, specific language impairment (SLI), autism, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Early behavioral findings suggest that the difficulties with reading stem from poor phonological coding in working memory.

Using EEG, MEG and fMRI, we are currently examining the neural correlates of phonological impairments in poor readers and the impact of impairment in different components of the language system on reading profiles.

The aim is to use neuroimaging to identify spatiotemporal patterns of brain activation as potential neural signatures to distinguish between reading subtypes. These patterns could serve as targets for developing new intervention.