Fen Zhang

My main research interests are related to the brain activity and networks in humans by using a wide variety of techniques, including NIRS, fMRI, ERP, , etc. I am particularly interested in research over brain development in infants at risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Cooperating with our team members, I will work on the differences of brain activity patterns between infants with high and low risk for ASD. Since reduced or increased information sharing among brain regions during early development becomes later relevant to language processing, it is necessary to examine the intrinsic communication between these regions for observing dysfunction in infants at risk for ASD. My current longitudinal study is designed to examine functional connectivity in infants at low risk and high risk for ASD, particularly in the language network, and its developmental changes during early childhood.

For these purposes we plan to examine the development of neural underpins language in 5, 10, 14 and 24 month old children. In order to investigate such an early developmental issue, we will assess task-related activation and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) related to the language system in infants at risk for ASD using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

E-mail: fen.zhang@ugent.be

Poster presentation

F. Zhang, H. Roeyers, G. Feng, S. Wang (2017, May), Abnormal funcional connectivity underlying social-communicative impairments in autism spectrum disorders. Poster presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR), San Francisco, USA.