Fundamental Neuroscience

One of the greatest barriers to improved mental health treatment is the subjectivity of diagnosis. Pinpointing the cause of a child’s challenges is often crucial to getting them the support they need. But mental health professionals can only interpret what’s wrong by observing a patient and listening to their story. Often, the same outward symptoms can reflect a range of underlying causes.

That’s why we’re leading a global effort to identify measurable brain- and behavior-based biomarkers to guide clinical practice. We want to understand what a child is struggling with and how to help them through objective measures such as brain scans and sleep tests. This will spark a revolution in mental health by dramatically improving the precision of our diagnoses and the reliability of our treatments.

Learn more about the essential work happening at the Center for the Developing Brain and the Autism Center.