Annika Linke

Annika Linke, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at San Diego State University (SDSU), within the College of Sciences. Her research focuses on neurodevelopmental disorders, particularly autism spectrum disorder (ASD), using advanced neuroimaging techniques like fMRI to study brain function across the lifespan. She holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the University of Cambridge and a B.A. in Cognitive Psychology from Jacobs University Bremen. Prior to joining SDSU in 2016, she conducted postdoctoral research at Western University's Brain and Mind Institute in Canada.

Dr. Linke's work investigates how brain networks develop and differ in individuals with ASD, with a focus on sensory processing, sleep, and cognitive functions. Her lab, part of the Brain and Developmental Imaging Lab (BDIL), employs multimodal neuroimaging to understand functional connectivity disruptions in ASD. Key areas of interest include auditory and motor cortex abnormalities, thalamocortical connectivity, and longitudinal developmental trajectories in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Her research has explored links between neural biomarkers (e.g., BOLD signal variability, glymphatic activity) and behavioral outcomes in ASD, particularly in children and older adults. She also examines how early environmental factors (e.g., multilingual exposure) influence brain network organization in neurodevelopmental populations. Methodological contributions include optimizing fMRI protocols for infants and refining neuroimaging analysis techniques like dynamic time warping for ASD classification.

Dr. Linke collaborates internationally, including work on affordable neuroimaging in low-resource settings. She has published extensively on ASD-related topics, with over 50 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as NeuroImage, Human Brain Mapping, and Sleep Medicine. Her current projects aim to identify neurobiological mechanisms underlying ASD symptoms to inform early intervention strategies.