Fetal-Neonatal Neuroimaging & Developmental Science Center

Dr. Ahtam received her BA in Psychology from Koc University (Istanbul, Turkey). She obtained her MSc in Research in Psychology and PhD (DPhil) in Psychiatry from the University of Oxford.  She investigated language processing in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) for her doctoral research. The main goals of her study were to use magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate sentence context effects on the understanding of individual words and semantic ambiguity resolution during reading in individuals with ASD and in typically developing (TD) individuals.

For her post-doctoral research at CHB, Dr. Ahtam is using MEG and electroencephalography (EEG) to study brain function during the early stages of development of TD children, children with ASD, and children with related neurological disorders such as Tuberous Sclerosis Complex,  under the guidance of Dr. Ellen Grant and Dr. Yoshio Okada. Dr. Ahtam is also interested in studying brain connectivity in these clinical populations using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

Her research interests include:

• Brain functions and connectivity during early stages of development
• Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Tuberous Sclerosis Complex
• MEG, EEG, DTI