Mouse brain connectivity throughout development: using ultrasound in utero to predict adult behaviour

Project summary

Measuring brain activity throughout development remains a technical and methodological challenge. This hinders our understanding of how disrupted brain function early in life leads to behavioural deficits in adulthood. This problem is pressing since symptoms of many disorders can be better managed when therapy is initiated early. We aim to address this by developing a method to measure brain signals with ultrasound throughout development, and apply it to predict behavioural deficits in a mouse model of autism spectrum disorder.

By visualizing early life brain activity, this new technique will allow us to find brain alterations before changes in behaviour occur.