Giorgia Bussu

I investigate neurobiological mechanisms underlying autistic development through multi-modal behavioural and neuroimaging approaches, and use precision medicine methods to parse out individual variability in autism. My special interest lies on understanding the role of sensory processing alterations early in development, their impact on higher-order cognitive skills, and heterogeneous manifestation of autism in relation to co-occurrent conditions

I am a neuroscientist with a background in Physics, specialized in medical physics and brain imaging. I am originally from Italy, then moved to the Netherlands to work as a PhD candidate on a Marie-Sklodowska-Curie International Training Network grant at the Donders Institute and Radboud University Medical Centre and obtained a doctoral degree in Cognitive Neuroscience. As a PhD candidate, I applied novel machine-learning and data-driven methods on integrated brain and behavioural data for prediction of autism diagnosis and traits in infancy. I continued my work as a postdoc under the European AIMS-2-Trials project using an imaging genetics approach for the identification of stratification biomarkers for autism based on brain morphometry and function. I moved to Uppsala University in 2022 to continue my line of research, with a special interest on understanding the role of sensory processing alterations in relation to attention and social functioning in the early development of autism.

Next to my work as a researcher, I thoroughly enjoy teaching and science outreach. Therefore, I seek out for opportunities to reach out to the general public, starting from sharing approachable science on brain development and mental health online, through public events, and participating in the development of an app for perinatal use.