Project 1. Auditory and Visual Sensory ProcessingThe goal of the Program Project is to study hierarchical leyels of neural processing and cognition in order toidentify the neural and functional underpinnings of cognitive deficits in children (ages 7-10) with severalneurodevelopmental disorders - Specific Language Impairment (LI), Early Unilateral Focal Brain Lesions(FL), High Functioning Autism (HFA), and Williams Syndrome (WS). Within this framework, the role ofProject 1 is to systematically characterize the neural functioning of the sensory/perceptual mechanismsacross two modalities, auditory and visual, including three core processing aspects (time, space, features)and three processing levels (bottom-up driven, cortical sensory, top-down driven) in each modality. Ourthree overarching goals are (1) to determine the unique population landscapes of the sensory/perceptualdeficits across the modalities, levels, and aspects;(2) map these impairment profiles onto the hierarchy ofhigher cognitive functions of attention, language, and social skills, and (3) onto the neuro-anantomic andwhite matter connectivity measures. Over the past 15 years of research we have identified a number ofsensory problems in these clinical populations, however the extent of these abnormalities across themodalities and processing levels, or their impact onto the cognitive functions remains unclear. Exactly thesequestions will be addressed by the carefully matched experimental measures proposed herein.Corresponding to the three overarching goals, three sets of competing or complimentary hypotheses will betested, addressing alternative mechanisms of neurodevelopmental damage and compensatory plasticity,logistics of hierarchical information processing, and neural structure-function relationships. Behavioral tasks,continuous electrophysiological brain activity and event-related brain potentials will be assessed usingmodern data acquisition and analytic approaches. These measures will sample the very foundations ofhuman cognition. Their deficits will be traced across processing aspects, leyels, modalities, to the higherlevelcognitive impairment profiles, and mapped onto the corresponding brain volumetric (MRI) and whitematter integrity measures (DTI). In sum, this approach will yield a systematic and integrated view into thesensory/perceptual functioning and its neural bases in the Center clinical populations. Through theintegration across the Projects, we will be able to trace the ramifications of these abnormalities onto thehigher-order cognitive disability profiles. This will provide new and fuller insights into the neuro-pathpgenicmechanisms of these developmental disorders that may lead to the earlier and more specific diagnostic andintervention strategies.
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