Category: Research

Rare disease yields clues about broader brain pathology

Alexander disease is a devastating brain disease that almost nobody has heard of — unless someone in the family is afflicted with it. Alexander disease strikes young or old, and in children destroys white matter in the front of the brain.

Marsha Mailick discusses the Waisman Center’s Kennedy Connection

As the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy nears, Marsha Mailick, PhD, discusses the role the Kennedy family played in establishing the precursor to the Waisman Center and their greater legacy of developmental disabilities research and inclusion. View the video here.

Next-gen sequencing identifies genes associated with speech disorder

A collaborative team of researchers has used next generation sequencing to identify clinically relevant genetic variants associated with a rare pediatric speech disorder. The findings are published in the September 16, 2013 issue of the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders http://www.jneurodevdisorders.com/content/5/1/29. Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a rare, severe speech disorder that in some patients …

Waisman Center featured on “For the Record”

Neil Heinen, WISC-TV editorial director, recently sat down with Marsha R. Mailick, PhD, Waisman Center Director, along with Anita Bhattacharyya, PhD, Senior Scientist and Maria Stanley, MD, Waisman Center Clinics Medical Director, to discuss the breadth of research and service that takes place at the Waisman Center. The discussion also highlighted the Waisman Center’s 40th …

Hormones may usher abused girls into early adulthood

During the sort of tense situation that makes palms sweat and voices quaver, children and young adults are typically awash in cortisol, a stress hormone that sounds an alarm and prepares the body for fight-or-flight responses to danger.

A Call for Open Access to Autism Diagnostic Tools

Few studies of autism prevalence have been conducted in low- and middle-income countries. Freely available screening and diagnostic tools could help address this disparity

Waisman scientists model human disease in stem cells

Many scientists use animals to model human diseases. Mice can be obese or display symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Rats get Alzheimer's and diabetes. But animal models are seldom perfect, and so scientists are looking at a relatively new type of stem cell, called the induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS cell), that can be grown into specialized cells that become useful models for human disease.

UW-Madison researchers discuss procedure that helped boy hear

"When we think in general about children who are deaf and could benefit from the opportunity to gain access to speech and to language be mainstreamed... there's a lot of excitement," Professor Ruth Litovsky says about the surgery Grayson received.

Professor helps ‘Sesame Street’ reach children of imprisoned parents

By Käri Knutson It doesn’t get talked about much, yet nearly 2.7 million children are growing up with a parent who is in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. What do you tell those kids? What don’t you tell them? “Half of families say nothing,” says psychologist Julie Poehlmann, a professor in the …

Cap Times’ Evjue Foundation distributes $1 million to UW, area nonprofits

Checks totaling more than $1 million have been sent to 74 area nonprofits and to 17 project managers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by The Evjue Foundation, the charitable arm of The Capital Times.