Welcome to the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Unit
The goal of the research carried out by the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Unit (DCNU) is to:
- Understand the consequences of brain disease or injury sustained during childhood
- Examine brain/behaviour relationships
- Provide diagnostic and prognostic markers of cognitive and behavioural outcome
The DCNU was established in 1996 at ICH as the first paediatric department of its kind in the UK. Since then, it has developed alongside its clinical counterpart, the Neuropsychology Service at GOSH (Clinical Neuropsychology Service).
The academic and clinical departments work closely together to improve the diagnosis and treatment of cognitive and behavioural sequelae of brain damage or disease during development, and to identify the factors that impede or promote recovery and/or reorganization of function.
Research in the DCNU draws on a number of techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Event-Related-Potentials (ERPs) and neuropsychological assessment. Researchers in the DCNU are involved in extensive multidisciplinary collaborations with departments within ICH/GOSH and UCL, as well as across the UK and overseas.
Long standing collaborations with colleagues in the Imaging and Biophysics, Neurosciences and Cardiac Units at ICH and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in the USA have led to the:
- Discovery of the syndrome of Developmental Amnesia
- Identification of the neuropathology underlying inherited verbal and orofacial dyspraxia associated with the mutation/deletion of FOXP2, the first gene implicated in the developmental process that culminates in speech and language.
- Development of outcome measures for patients with intractable epilepsy undergoing elective surgery
Many investigators within the DCNU are members of the UCL Centre for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Page last modified on 23 apr 13 17:34
