Advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.
The COVID-19 pandemic pivoted many daily life activities, such as work and school, to a home base. Healthcare was no exception. In March, the Waisman Center Clinics transitioned all of its services to telehealth appointments using phone and video platforms. The 10 interdisciplinary specialty clinics and the center’s autism treatment program, operated in partnership with …
Early infancy is characterized by rapid brain development that occurs alongside, and in response to, the development of cognitive and behavioral functions, including attention. Infants' ability to orient and sustain attention to stimuli develops in concert with refinement of the orienting network in frontoparietal regions of the brain.
Teachers vary in their ability to enact effective teaching practices. We randomly assigned 88 early education preservice teachers to standard teacher education or teacher education plus a 9-week mindfulness-based intervention. Using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) as our primary outcome, we assessed effective teaching practices at baseline and at a 6-month follow-up that occurred during full-time student teaching.
Birth weight (BW) at delivery is an important developmental milestone indicative of prenatal conditions and portends of the postnatal growth trajectory that will occur during infancy and childhood. Previous research has documented that there are also many physiological and health consequences of being born either small-for-gestational age (SGA) or large-for-gestational age (LGA).
Adults with Down syndrome (DS) are predisposed to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and a characterization of glucose metabolism change throughout AD progression has yet to be performed in this population. Using FDG PET, regional glucose metabolism was evaluated across groups of cognitively stable DS (CS-DS), DS with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease (MCI-DS/AD), and healthy non-DS sibling controls.
A team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is part of a new multi-institution effort to better understand Alzheimer’s disease in adults with Down syndrome. Adults with Down syndrome are at high risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease beginning in their late 40s, because of their unique biology. The vast majority will eventually develop the …
Rett syndrome (RTT) is a severe X chromosome-linked debilitating neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the MECP2 gene affects 1 in 10,000-15,000 girls with no effective treatment. Our lab has been using RTT induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and neurons and astrocytes differentiated from iPSC as a platform to understand RTT disease mechanisms and develop treatment.
A peek into a collection of newspaper clippings about Ludell Swenson reveals the life of an extraordinarily accomplished person: marathoner, competitive tournament bowler, outspoken social services advocate. But what stands out the most is his lifelong participation in research that would lay the very foundation for the Waisman Center’s Communication Development Program (CDP) and the …
This study describes a time series-based method of middle ear muscle reflex (MEMR) detection using bilateral clicks, with implications for otoacoustic emission (OAE)-based medial olivocochlear reflex (MOCR) assays. Although current click-based methods can detect changes in the OAE evoking stimulus to monitor the MEMR, these methods do not discriminate between true MEMR-mediated vs. artifactual changes in the stimulus.
Congratulations to Aviad Hai, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and a Waisman affiliate, on being selected as a 2020 National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award.
