Andrew McKechanie is a senior clinical research fellow at The Patrick Wild Centre for Research into Autism, Fragile X and Intellectual Disabilities.

The Patrick Wild Centre

His clinical work is as a consultant psychiatrist for the NHS Lothian Learning Disability Services in East Lothian.

He also serves as a board member of Scottish Autism, a national charity which provides autism-specific services to autistic children and adults, along with support and information for their families, carers and professionals.

Scottish Autism

My research interests primarily relate to intellectual disabilities, the autism spectrum and related neurodevelopmental disorders. While our understanding of these conditions has increased dramatically in recent years, in many cases this has yet to be translated into meaningful clinical benefits for individuals affected by them. I have a particular interest in the methods that can be used to bring fundamental and clinical research more closely together; particularly through the use of translational measures of cognition, imaging and development.

• Functional brain imaging in individuals with intellectual disabilities, autism and fragile X syndrome.

• The genetics of neuropsychiatric disorders in individuals with an intellectual disability.

• The neuropsychiatric phenotype of individuals with genetic variants in SYNGAP1.

• Translational measures of development and cognition, to bridge the gap between pre-clinical and clinical research.

• Development of novel, objective outcome measures for use in clinical trials with individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders.

• Glucocorticoid metabolism in Down syndrome.