Congratulations to Dr. Valerio Zerbi for receiving an ETH Zurich Postdoctoral Fellowship (ETH Fellows)

This project uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate which brain circuits are dysfunctional in two well-established animal models mouse mutants relevant for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)  and seeks to identify new, MRI based biomarker to evaluate drug treatment effects. We will combine MRI with behavioral tests in order to test how brain connectivity relates to autistic-like behavior in these mice, and whether both behavior and brain connectivity changes in response to the drug. Using two genotypes with different alterations at the neuronal level but with similar behavioral abnormalities enables us to test whether the disorder converges on common brain circuits. We anticipate that the proposed research will result in high impact publications that will provide major methodological advancement in the field of preclinical neuroimaging and yield important new insights into the role of brain connectivity in ASD. The proposed experiments will provide an essential and highly translational framework to bridge the gap between synaptic changes and behavioral improvements in drug discovery.