Facilities
The National Autism Center is based in a primary office area of ~150 sq. mt. with seven rooms in the eastern section of the Psychiatry building at Soroka Medical Center.
The research center contains two behavioral recording rooms equipped with high-end video and audio recording systems (2-4 HD video cameras) and a state-of-the-art motion-tracking system, which utilizes Kinect technology to track the movements of children as they participate in clinical assessments. These rooms enable us to collect various behavioral information about children with autism who participate in our studies.
A child-friendly reception room is used to welcome families and enable them to complete questionnaires and contribute saliva samples for DNA sequencing.
An adjacent eye-tracking room contains a high-end EyeLink 1000 head-free eye-tracking system dedicated to ASD research. Children often participate in our eye-tracking studies while the parents fill out questionnaires in the reception room.
Finally, A large shared conference room is used for the center’s meetings, including the Autism Forum meetings and special seminars.
The center also utilizes additional research facilities throughout BGU and Soroka campuses.
Administration & Management Offices
The National Center administration & management offices are located at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Marcus Family Campus, on the second floor of the Sam Gorovoy Building for Natural Sciences (building number 30).
Along the center’s hallway and the conference room, you’ll be able to find an art exhibition created and donated to the center by autistic artists and their families.
DNA extraction form saliva samples is performed in the lab of Prof. Hava Golan, which is fully equipped to perform molecular biology research using a variety of protein, cell culture, and fluorescent imaging techniques.
Overnight EEG recordings of children with ASD are performed in the Soroka sleep lab, directed by Prof. Ariel Tarasiuk. The sleep lab has four private exam rooms for Polysomnography exams. We currently use one of these rooms once a week for autism research.
MRI scans of children and adults with ASD are performed at the BGU Brain Imaging Research Center, which contains a 3T Phillips Ingenia scanner.
EEG studies of adults with autism are currently performed with a BioSemi 128 channel EEG system in a sound-proof, shielded room in the lab of Prof. Ilan Dinstein. This lab is also equipped with a 24-core super-computer for intense neuroimaging data analysis using a variety of advanced software tools.
Our clinical trials utilize a variety of facilities that are provided by the Soroka Clinical Research Center, including facilities for storing specimen and medications as well as offices and staff for managing clinical trials.
Finally, we regularly extract extensive clinical information about the pregnancy, birth, and early clinical history of each child using the Soroka Electronic Patient Record systems, which are managed by the computer department of the medical center.