Dr KyungMin An PhD

Dr KyungMin An

School of Psychology
Assistant Professor in Psychology

Contact details

Address
G05, Centre for Human Brain Health
School of Psychology
University of Birmingham
Birmingham
B15 2TT

Dr KyungMin An’s main interests are in neuroimaging studies on child development and children with developmental disorders. She is focusing on developmental trajectories of brain activity/rhythms across child development and neural characteristics in children with developmental disorders. To measure brain responses from children, she is applying non-invasive and child-friendly neuroimaging tools such as EEG/MEG and Optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs).

View KyungMin An’s lab website (https://sites.google.com/view/an-lab/home)

Qualifications

BA. Psychology

MSc. Medical Physics

PhD. Child development

Biography

Dr Kyung-min An took her BA in Psychology at Chungnam National University, Republic of Korea. She took her MSc in Medical Physics at the University of Science and Technology, Republic of Korea. During her MSc, she studied brain responses to the somatosensory processing measured by Magnetoencephalography (MEG). She took her PhD in Child Development at Osaka University, Japan. She studied brain activity during motor control in children with autism spectrum disorders using child-customized MEG. As a postdoctoral fellow, she focused on neural and cognitive development in young children at the Research Center for Child Mental Development, Kanazawa University, Japan.

In 2020, she was employed as an assistant professor at Kanazawa University, Japan. She focused on the topic of neuroimaging of child development, autism spectrum disorders, and preterm-birth children using MEG. She developed a MEG system with multi-channel optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) to measure the auditory gamma activity. Her research was funded by the Japan Science and Technology Agency, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Collaborative Research Network for Asian Children with Developmental Disorders.

She joined the School of Psychology and Centre for Human Brain Health at the University of Birmingham in June 2022. Her research interests are mainly focused on 1) developing an OPM-MEG system for infants, children, and adolescents, and 2) applying it to study child development and developmental disorders.

Postgraduate supervision

Dr KyungMin An is looking for highly motivated and enthusiastic students who are interested in neuroimaging study about child development and developmental disorders.

Please feel free to contact her to discuss projects and potential funding opportunities. (k.m.an@bham.ac.uk)

Research

Dr KyungMin An’s research interests are focused on child development and developmental disorders using child-friendly neuroimaging techniques. Her main research tools are EEG/MEG and optically pumped magnetometer (OPM) to measure brain activity and rhythms. She is seeking neural correlates of behaviour and brain responses related to the child development and developmental disorders. 

Child OPM-MEG

-        Developing and optimizing an OPM-MEG system for infants, children, and adolescents.

-        Applying the child OPM-MEG system to study on child development and developmental disorders.

Developmental trajectory across child development

-        Developing multi-sensory/motor task for children.

-        Investigating the developmental trajectory over a wide age range.

-        Finding trends of developmental trajectory in children with ASD and preterm-birth children.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)

-        Finding a characteristics of brain response and developmental trajectory in children with ASD.

-        Investigating brain mechanism of sensory/motor processing in children with ASD.

-        Finding Neural correlates of behavioural characteristics of ASD.

Publications

Highlight publications

An, K, Shim, JH, Kwon, H, Lee, Y-H, Yu, K-K, Kwon, M, Chun, WY, Hirosawa, T, Hasegawa, C, Iwasaki, S, Kikuchi, M & Kim, K 2022, 'Detection of the 40 Hz auditory steady-state response with optically pumped magnetometers', Scientific Reports, vol. 12, no. 1, 17993. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-21870-5

An, K, Hasegawa, C, Hirosawa, T, Tanaka, S, Saito, D, Kumazaki, H, Yaoi, K, Kikuchi, M & Yoshimura, Y 2020, 'Brain responses to human‐voice processing predict child development and intelligence', Human Brain Mapping, vol. 41, no. 9, pp. 2292-2301. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.24946

An, K, Ikeda, T, Yoshimura, Y, Hasegawa, C, Saito, D, Kumazaki, H, Hirosawa, T, Minabe, Y & Kikuchi, M 2018, 'Altered gamma oscillations during motor control in children with autism spectrum disorder', The Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 38, no. 36, pp. 7878-7886. https://doi.org/DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1229-18.2018

An, K, Ikeda, T, Hasegawa, C, Yoshimura, Y, Tanaka, S, Saito, D, Yaoi, K, Iwasaki, S, Hirosawa, T, Jensen, O & Kikuchi, M 2021, 'Aberrant brain oscillatory coupling from the primary motor cortex in children with autism spectrum disorders', NeuroImage: Clinical, vol. 29, 102560. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2021.102560

An, K, Ikeda, T, Hirosawa, T, Yaoi, K, Yoshimura, Y, Hasegawa, C, Tanaka, S, Saito, D & Kikuchi, M 2021, 'Decreased grey matter volumes in unaffected mothers of individuals with autism spectrum disorder reflect the broader autism endophenotype', Scientific Reports, vol. 11, no. 1, 10001 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89393-z

Recent publications

Article

Yeom, H & An, K 2024, 'A Simplified Query-Only Attention for Encoder-Based Transformer Models', Applied Sciences, vol. 14, no. 19, 8646. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14198646

Sano, M, Hirosawa, T, Yoshimura, Y, Hasegawa, C, An, K-M, Tanaka, S, Yaoi, K, Naitou, N, Kikuchi, M & Fernandes, TP (ed.) 2024, 'Neural responses to syllable-induced P1m and social impairment in children with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing Peers', PLOS One, vol. 19, no. 3, e0298020. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298020

Kameya, M, Hirosawa, T, Soma, D, Yoshimura, Y, An, K, Iwasaki, S, Tanaka, S, Yaoi, K, Sano, M, Miyagishi, Y & Kikuchi, M 2024, 'Relationships between peak alpha frequency, age, and autistic traits in young children with and without autism spectrum disorder', Frontiers in Psychiatry, vol. 15, 1419815. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1419815

Shiota, Y, Hirosawa, T, Yoshimura, Y, Tanaka, S, Hasegawa, C, Iwasaki, S, Sano, M, An, K, Yokoyama, S & Kikuchi, M 2022, 'Effect of CNTNAP2 polymorphism on receptive language in children with autism spectrum disorder without language developmental delay', Neuropsychopharmacology Reports, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 352–355. https://doi.org/10.1002/npr2.12267

Shiota, Y, Hirosawa, T, Yoshimura, Y, Tanaka, S, Hasegawa, C, Iwasaki, S, An, K, Soma, D, Sano, M, Yokoyama, S & Kikuchi, M 2021, 'A common variant of CNTNAP2 is associated with sub-threshold autistic traits and intellectual disability', PLOS One, vol. 16, no. 12, e0260548. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260548

Soma, D, Hirosawa, T, Hasegawa, C, An, K, Kameya, M, Hino, S, Yoshimura, Y, Nobukawa, S, Iwasaki, S, Tanaka, S, Yaoi, K, Sano, M, Shiota, Y, Naito, N & Kikuchi, M 2021, 'Atypical resting state functional neural network in children with autism spectrum disorder: graph theory approach', Frontiers in Psychiatry, vol. 12, 790234. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.790234

Hirosawa, T, An, K, Soma, D, Shiota, Y, Sano, M, Kameya, M, Hino, S, Naito, N, Tanaka, S, Yaoi, K, Iwasaki, S, Yoshimura, Y & Kikuchi, M 2021, 'Epileptiform discharges relate to altered functional brain networks in autism spectrum disorders', Brain Communications, vol. 3, no. 3, fcab184. https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcab184

Sano, M, Yoshimura, Y, Hirosawa, T, Hasegawa, C, An, K, Tanaka, S, Naito, N & Kikuchi, M 2021, 'Joint attention and intelligence in children with autism spectrum disorder without severe intellectual disability', Autism Research, vol. 14, no. 12, pp. 2603-2612. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2600

Yoshimura, Y, Ikeda, T, Hasegawa, C, An, K, Tanaka, S, Yaoi, K, Iwasaki, S, Saito, D, Kumazaki, H, Hiraishi , H & Kikuchi, M 2021, 'Shorter P1m response in children with autism spectrum disorder without intellectual disabilities', International Journal of Molecular Sciences, vol. 22, no. 5, 2611. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22052611

Hirosawa, T, Kontani, K, Fukai, M, Kameya, M, Soma, D, Hino, S, Kitamura, T, Hasegawa, C, An, K, Takahashi, T, Yoshimura, Y & Kikuchi, M 2020, 'Different associations between intelligence and social cognition in children with and without autism spectrum disorders', PLOS One, vol. 15, no. 8, pp. e0235380. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235380

Hirosawa, T, Sowman, P, Fukai, M, Kameya, M, Soma, D, Hino, S, Kitamura, T, An, K, Yoshimura, Y, Hasegawa, C, Saito, D, Ikeda, T & Kikuchi, M 2020, 'Relationship between epileptiform discharges and social reciprocity or cognitive function in children with and without autism spectrum disorders: An MEG study', Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, vol. 74, no. 9, pp. 510. https://doi.org/10.1111/pcn.13093

Hirosawa, T, Kikuchi, M, Fukai, M, Hino, S, Kitamura, T, An, K, Sowman, P, Takahashi, T, Yoshimura, Y, Miyagishi, Y & Minabe, Y 2018, 'Association Between Magnetoencephalographic Interictal Epileptiform Discharge and Cognitive Function in Young Children With Typical Development and With Autism Spectrum Disorders', Frontiers in Psychiatry, vol. 9, pp. 568. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00568

Kumazaki, H, Okamoto, M, Yoshimura, Y, Ikeda, T, Hasegawa, C, Saito, D, Iwanaga, R, Tomiyama, S, An, K, Minabe, Y & Kikuchi, M 2018, 'Brief Report: Odour Awareness in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders', Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 1809–1815. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3710-y

An, K, Lim, S, Lee, HJ, Kwon, H, Kim, M-Y, Gohel, B, Kim, J-E & Kim, K 2018, 'Magnetoencephalographic study of event-related fields and cortical oscillatory changes during cutaneous warmth processing', Human Brain Mapping, vol. 39, no. 5, pp. 1972-1981. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.23977

Preprint

An, K, Shim, JH, Kwon, H, Lee, Y-H, Yu, K-K, Kwon, M, Chun, WY, Hirosawa, T, Hasegawa, C, Iwasaki, S, Kikuchi, M & Kim, K 2021 'Detection of the 40-Hz auditory steady-state response with optically pumped magnetometers' bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.01.462598

View all publications in research portal