U. research lab develops new framework for autism diagnosis

In September, Theodoros Bermperidis, a postdoctoral researcher at the Sensory-Motor Integration Lab (SMIL), published a paper discussing novel markers that can help clinicians quantify the relationship between social and motor skills when diagnosing individuals with autism.

The Daily Targum spoke with Bermperidis about his work and its implications for diagnostic practices.

After receiving his Ph.D. in Cognitive Science at Rutgers, Bermperidis continued developing mathematical frameworks and models to better understand human motion, behaviors and interactions. Although SMIL's work ranges from biomarkers of pain to psychiatry, its prime focus is on autism, according to its website.

Bermperidis emphasized the lack of empirical methods to quantify and identify autism despite the long-standing history of the disorder. His goal is to alter the process of autism diagnosis by basing it on scientific models instead of social definitions.

"My belief is that you cannot trust something in science unless that something is based on objective measurements," he said.

Currently, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) is a standard test used in clinical settings to classify people on the autism spectrum, according to the study. The test comprises a series of various interactive tasks that a child and sometimes an accompanying clinician partake in to diagnose the patient based on their observations, Bermperidis said.

He said that ADOS-based diagnoses are often based on vague psychological and philosophical theories of the disorder. Furthermore, he added that autism is often misunderstood as a culturally biased social issue instead of an empirically rooted neurodevelopmental disorder.

These interpretations contribute to underdiagnosis in women, as autism is perceived as a "male disorder," according to Bermperidis.

"When you develop these tests, there is an inherent cultural bias on what is socially acceptable or not socially acceptable in a particular society where the test was developed," he said.

He said that autism can instead be better understood as a motor disorder. Therefore, he used sensors on the arms, hands and torsos of study participants to measure movements during social interactions.

In the study, Bermperidis used sensor data to measure the balance between two parameters: motor control and motor autonomy. The former delineates the ability of the nervous system to perform specific movements with accuracy, whereas the latter focuses on variable motor patterns that change in social interactions.

He said he foresees that this tool will complement clinicians' work and parts of the ADOS test. According to Bermperidis, his work aims to transform how neurodevelopmental disorders are diagnosed and ground the treatments on an evidence-based understanding of the nervous system.

"My dream for neuroscience is … instead of being a collection of smaller opinions and small theories and small this and small that, to be actual unified theory that is experimentally testable and can be described by mathematical laws," he said.