Advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Qiang Chang, a longstanding member of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Waisman Center’s leadership team, has been named the new director of the center following a nationwide search. Chang will assume the position on July 1 and report to the UW–Madison vice chancellor for research and graduate education. Qiang Chang Chang is an associate professor of …
Say you are shown an apple, a banana and a fruit you have never seen before. Then you are asked to pick the “pifo.” Which fruit would you choose? Chances are you would select the novel fruit.
The thalamus is a key sensorimotor relay area that is implicated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it is unknown how the thalamus and white-matter structures that contain thalamo-cortical fiber connections (e.g., the internal capsule) develop from childhood into adulthood and whether this microstructure relates to basic motor challenges in ASD.
Waisman Biomanufacturing has produced and helped bring to clinical trial a vaccine that aims to prevent infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. The vaccine was developed by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and is set to undergo a Phase I clinical trial at four sites in the United …
There’s a saying in the autism community: If you have met one person with autism, you have met one person with autism. That’s because “as the name implies, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exists on a spectrum with a wide range of symptoms, skills and levels of severity with which it impacts a person’s daily life,” …
Searching for understanding, and a cure: Rett syndrome is a rare non-inherited neurological disorder that mostly affects girls and causes severe deterioration in their ability to speak, walk, eat and even breathe easily. This disease is caused by variations in a gene called MECP2. Waisman Center investigator Qiang Chang uses human stem cell and animal …
The FMR1 premutation is of increasing interest to the fragile X syndrome (FXS) community, as questions about a primary premutation phenotype warrant research attention. One hundred FMR1 premutation carrier mothers (mean age = 58; 67 to 138 CGG repeats) of adults with fragile X syndrome were studied with respect to their physical and mental health, and motor and neurocognitive characteristics.
Many people with single-sided deafness have tinnitus in the deaf ear (and normal hearing in the other ear). We are conducting a clinical trial in collaboration with surgeons at Harvard Medical School, to determine if a CI in the deaf ear provides: (A) relief from tinnitus due to the electrical stimulation, and (B) improved ability to localize sounds.
Inconsistent parental discipline is a robust correlate of child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, but few studies have considered the role of inconsistent positive parenting on ADHD, as well as the effects of stress on negative and positive parental consistency.
Marijo Bunbury loves a challenge, especially when she’s passionate about the outcome. Luckily for the Waisman Center, in 1994 someone told Bunbury that a congested events calendar would make it impossible to raise funds (to support the center) through a golf benefit. Twenty-three “Friends of the Waisman Center Golf Benefits” – and more than $680,000 …
