Autism-Spectrum-Disorder (ASD) patients often present impairment in cooperative behavior and deficits in social motor synchrony, but the altered brain mechanisms at the basis of such functions in ASD haven't been completely described. Moreover, although cooperative and motor coordination functions involve interaction with others, most social neuroscience studies so far focused on the processes occurring in a single brain, thus missing the opportunity to investigate the entire interacting system. Recently, methodological and technical improvements in signal recordings and processing techniques successfully allowed the study of multiple-brain systems by means of simultaneous recordings from multiple subjects, a technique called hyperscanning. Despite the advancements in this field, such approach has never been applied to autism as an instrument to investigate the specific interaction established during a social exchange.
With this project involving biomedical engineering, social neuroscience and clinical psychology, we aim to study EEG-hyperscanning from pairs including an ASD patient involved in real-life interactions by the exploration of a crucial but deviant social ability in ASD: cooperative joint action. In addition, we aim to develop and implement a new instrument for the real-time monitoring of multiple-subject systems during the simultaneous recording of EEG brain signals from dyads of interacting subjects. Using mathematical indices derived directly from brain signals during a social exchange, we intend to characterise instantaneously as well as long-term natural reciprocal changing and adaptation in ASD. This highly multidisciplinary project can represent a first step to identify the earliest signs of atypical neurodevelopment in ASD. In the long perspective, the ambitious goal of this project can lead to identify objective measurements of therapeutic outcome directly in the brain and to novel clinical treatments in autism in a real-time setting.
