CHU Sainte-Justine is the major pediatric centre in Quebec for the clinical evaluation of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as intellectual disability, epilepsy and autism spectrum disorders. A second important focus is to understand the development of psychopathologies. It has been estimated that one out of five children has attention or communication problems, anxiety, is hyperactive of impulsive or shows aggressive behaviour before adolescence.
The main goals of this axis are to:
- identify genetic and environmental determinants of neurodevelopmental disorders;
- understand the impact of these determinants on the development of neuronal circuits;
- characterize neurodevelopment phenotypes in children with the goal to find biomarkers allowing early diagnosis and intervention of children at risk; and
- combine the data obtained through patient phenotypes and functional analysis to inform the development of new therapeutic approaches/interventions.
In order to achieve these goals the axis integrates multiple and complementary approaches, including genetic and epigenetic analyzes, observation of the development of neuronal circuits in model systems, brain imaging, neuropsychological evaluations, evaluation of psychopathologies, longitudinal follow-up of the development of large birth cohorts and the experimentation of preventive interventions.
The integration of these approaches has become essential for studying the development of brain pathologies and their prevention. The axis has two major research themes: the development of psychopathologies and neurodevelopmental diseases.