Home Department: undeclared
Mentor: Joachim Hallmayer (Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences)

“Alpha-Waves and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – A Study of Humans and Zebrafish”

Electroencephalographic (EEG) abnormalities including a reduced activity of medium frequencies (alpha) have been reported in individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These abnormalities impact an autistic person’s ability to feel empathy and self-awareness, which are overall core deficits of autism. Recently, variants in three genes have been detected that affect the alpha rhythm. Sasha will leverage comparative biology across humans with ASD and complementary genetic zebrafish models to test whether the effects of these genes in zebrafish converge with the brain activity in ASD. She will engineer mutations in the genes in zebrafish and perform human EEGs and fish EEG-equivalent. The result will help us to understand core symptoms of ASD and why individuals with ASD process certain social deficits differently.