A decade after scientists announced the development of induced pluripotent stem cells, Waisman investigators, including Su-Chun Zhang and David Gamm, continue to use these cells to research and develop potential therapies for several disorders and conditions, such as ALS, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, and macular degeneration.
Year: 2017
New faculty focus: Sriram Boothalingam
How did you get into your field of research? After I learned that the inner ear can produce sounds on its own and that the brain controls what we hear, I was hooked!
Leann Smith DaWalt, PhD
Currently there are few evidence-based programs available for families of individuals with ASD during the transition to adulthood. The present study provided a preliminary evaluation of a multi-family group psychoeducation intervention using a randomized waitlist control design (n = 41).
Mining the cerebellum for its role in speech
“We found that the folks with cerebellar damage responded to these unpredictable changes to a larger extent than those without any damage,” says Parrell. “It was totally unexpected.”
Richard Davidson, PhD
Empathy, the ability to understand others’ emotions, can occur through perspective taking and experience sharing. Neural systems active when adults empathize include regions underlying perspective taking (e.g. medial prefrontal cortex; MPFC), and experience sharing (e.g. inferior parietal lobule; IPL).
Christopher Coe, PhD
Hormones present in hair provide summative information about endocrine activity while the hair was growing. Therefore, it can be collected from an infant after birth and still provide retrospective information about hormone exposure during prenatal development.
Bradley T Christian, PhD
Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by accumulation of beta amyloid (Aβ) and hyperphosphorylated tau proteins, which neuropathology suggests follow distinct spatiotemporal patterns.
Qiang Chang, PhD
Rett syndrome (RTT) is a debilitating neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the MECP2 gene. To facilitate the study of cellular mechanisms in human cells, we established several human stem cell lines.
Autism prevalence and socioeconomic status: What’s the connection?
Children living in neighborhoods where incomes are low and fewer adults have bachelor’s degrees are less likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder compared to kids from more affluent neighborhoods. The finding is part …
A child’s death brings ‘trauma that doesn’t go away’
A recent story in the New York Times discusses the trauma that parents experience after the death of a child. In particular, elderly parents who lose a child are vulnerable both emotionally and pragmatically. Waisman …