CNR NANO - Istituto Nanoscienze Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

- 18.04.2019 - NANO COLLOQUIA 2019
Date and Time: Thursday April 18, 2019 - 11.00
Venue: NEST Seminar Room

Speaker: Enrico Pracucci
Title: Computation in the autistic brain

Abstract: Phelan-McDermid Syndrome (PMS) is a rare genetic condition, that leads to severe intellectual disability, delayed development and autism spectrum symptoms. In these patients, the impairment of higher cognitive functions is the most evident functional alteration of the nervous system. In our study though, we focused on the functionality of the primary visual cortex of a mouse model of PMS. The visual cortex is a relatively simple circuit to study how the information is being processed and it also provides the input for higher-level computation. Indeed, we found an alteration in gain control of the visual system at a cortical level, that could lead to interesting hypothesis on how the autistic brain perceives the external world.