One of the most important scientific vectors of the center concerns cognitive and clinical neurosciences, with relevant scientific production in the fields of:

• Vision, Perception and Decision-making;
• Language, Memory, Conceptual Knowledge and Object Categorization;
• Neurodevelopmental Disorders with a focus on mechanisms of disease, impaired neurotransmission and neurophysiology, with multimodal explanatory approaches; and
• Cortical plasticity and neurorehabilitation in the maturing and adult brain.

UC is a leading institution in brain MR imaging and molecular probe production and molecular imaging. It has a strong expertise in signal & image processing, experimental design and data acquisition and management. These pillars create the core medical imaging equipment infrastructure in Portugal with relevant scientific productivity now expanding to all levels of multimodal imaging. We have unique expertise and equipment for development of imaging markers and clinical studies in vision and brain imaging.

Linked to UC is the Clinical and Academic Centre, resulting from the consortium that involves the University (through the Faculty of Medicine) and the Coimbra Hospital and Universitary Centre (CHUC). Recognized as a research centre of national excellence with a wide range of clinical services and medical specialties, CHUC also integrates a Central Pediatric Hospital with a specialized neurodevelopmental and autism unity (UNDA). The UNDA is a national reference for neurodevelopmental disorders, especially for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), providing a comprehensive clinical and biological database of more than 3500 patients with neurodevelopmental disorders (≈ 2000 with ASD and ADHD). UNDA also provides specific friendly spaces, equipment, human resources and lab spaces that are well equipped (nurses, psychologists, neurodevelopmental pediatricians, neuropsychological tests and eyetracking systems), so that children can be evaluated in the context of translational research in a comfortable way.

Role of UC in STIPED

UC leads work package 7 which focuses on investigation of mechanims of tDCS in patient with ADHD and ASD. UC is responsible for the management of the work package and for all tasks dealing with connectivity analyses and with analyses of fMRI data. Moreover, UC will also contribute to investigation of healthy children and adolescents (Clinical study 1 in work package 3). UC/Clinical Academic Centre takes part in patients' recruitment and data acquisition in work package 4 (studies 2-4 with ADHD patients) and work package 5 (study 5 with patients suffering from autism). UC/Clinical Academic Centre will recruit 60 patients with ADHD for clinical studies 2 & 3, 25 ADHD patients for study 4, and 35 ASD patients for clinical study 5.

STIPED team at UC