Our research combines multimodal imaging, repeated measurements of daily-life behaviour and multiscale models of cortical organisation. We develop measurement tools, test their reproducibility and investigate their biological and clinical interpretation.
Figure 1 from Turna et al. (2025). CC BY 4.0.
Digital phenotyping extends behavioural assessment beyond scheduled visits. We develop smartphone-based methods that combine passive measurements with ecological momentary assessment, allowing behaviour and self-reported experience to be studied repeatedly in everyday settings. The JTrack applications and JDash study-management environment support this work.
Our studies examine which features can be measured reliably, how they vary over time and how they relate to clinical characteristics. Research on smartphone communication in autistic adults illustrates this approach: four months of observation revealed differences in the relative use of written and verbal communication. The study provides a real-world complement to questionnaire-based assessments while retaining the limitations of observational app-use measures.
Alongside applications in clinical research, the group develops reusable software for study configuration, data collection and quality control. Transparent feature definitions and careful evaluation of missing data are central to interpreting longitudinal digital measurements.
Example: Turna et al., npj Digital Medicine (2025)
Figure 1 from Paquola et al. (2026). CC BY 4.0.
The MuNe team led by Dr. Casey Paquola investigates how cortical microstructure, connectivity and functional organisation develop together. The work connects measurements across scales, from post-mortem histology and molecular brain atlases to in-vivo MRI and large developmental cohorts.
These studies provide a biological context for interpreting developmental variation in imaging measures. Combining normative modelling, multimodal mapping and network analysis helps distinguish changes associated with age from differences linked to regional cortical organisation.
Paquola et al., Nature Neuroscience (2025)
Figure 2 from Lotter et al. (2024). CC BY 4.0.
We study how structural and functional imaging measures relate to the biology of neurological and psychiatric conditions. Multimodal MRI and computational analyses are combined with reference maps of neurotransmitter systems, cellular organisation and gene expression. This allows regional imaging findings to be examined within a broader neurobiological framework.
A central question is whether an observed imaging pattern is reproducible across datasets and informative about the processes underlying a clinical phenotype.
One line of research relates regional cortical thickness trajectories to cellular and neurochemical organisation. Work led by Dr. Leon Lotter shows that these relationships change across development and ageing, with complementary evidence from developmental gene expression and longitudinal adolescent imaging. A related line of work examines how cytoarchitectural differences within large-scale networks relate to wiring and the direction of signal flow.
Our work in autism, for example, relates local resting-state activity differences to neurotransmitter distributions and experimentally induced pharmacological changes. These analyses concern group-level relationships; their translation into individual-level biomarkers requires further validation.
Methodological development supports this research. JuSpace and NiSpace provide tools for spatial comparisons between neuroimaging maps and molecular or cellular atlases, including statistical procedures that account for spatial structure.
Lotter et al., Nature Communications (2024) ·
Grumbach et al., Nature Communications (2025)
