Dr. Nico Bast
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy
Deutschordenstrasse 50
60528 Frankfurt am Main
+49 (0)69 6301 6223
E-Mail: nbast@med.uni-frankfurt.de
Scientific Focus
My research focus is on neurodevelopmental conditions and transdiagnostic psychopathology in the childhood. We utilize eye-tracking, electrophysiology, and digital phenotyping to assess preschoolers up to adolescents in naturalistic paradigms. We aim to identify risk mechanisms that predict early psychopathology in human development.
Methods
eye-tracking, pupillometry, computer vision, clinical trials, neurocognitive paradigms, electrophysiology, ecologically valid designs
Selected Publications
Müller, A. K., Luckhardt, C., Freitag, C. M., & Bast, N. (2026). Locus coeruleus modulation of neurophysiological sensory selectivity differs in autism and other mental health conditions. Translational psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-026-03948-0
Lemler, C., Kleber, S. K., Polzer, L., Raji, N., Kitzerow-Cleven, J., Kim, Z., Platte, S., Freitag, C. M., & Bast, N. (2025). Semi-Automated Multi-Label Classification of Autistic Mannerisms by Machine Learning on Post Hoc Skeletal Tracking. Autism Research, 18(4), 833-844. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.70020
Bast, N., Ahmad, J., Mason, L., Jones, E. J. H., Matyjek, M., Polzer, L., Luckhardt, C., Müller, A. K., McAlonan, G. M., Banaschewski, T., Baumeister, S., Loth, E., Freitag, C. M., Ambrosino, S., Auyeung, B., Baron-Cohen, S., Baumeister, S., Beckmann, C. F., Bölte, S., . . . The EU-AIMS group (2025). Locus coeruleus tonic upregulation increases selectivity to inconspicuous auditory information in autistic compared to non-autistic individuals: a combined pupillometry and electroencephalography study. Molecular Autism, 16(1), 41. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-025-00678-w
Bast, N., Polzer, L., Raji, N., Schnettler, L., Kleber, S., Lemler, C., Kitzerow-Cleven, J., Kim, Z., Schaer, M., & Freitag, C. M. (2025). Early intervention increases reactive joint attention in autistic preschoolers with arousal regulation as mediator. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-025-02738-1
Bast, N., Boxhoorn, S., Supér, H., Helfer, B., Polzer, L., Klein, C., Cholemkery, H., & Freitag, C. M. (2023). Atypical Arousal Regulation in Children With Autism but Not With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder as Indicated by Pupillometric Measures of Locus Coeruleus Activity. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging., 8(1), 11. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2021.04.010