In a study published today, Waisman Center investigators Su-Chun Zhang, Albee Messing and colleagues point to new understandings of the broad range of effects that result from the GFAP mutation impacting astrocytes — important supporting …
Neurodegenerative
Studying Alzheimer’s disease in individuals with Down syndrome
About once every year and a half, Erin Harvey takes time off of her job as a teacher’s aide and along with her mom, Nancy, makes a two and a half hour drive from her …
Whirling the Waisman Way with Team Tristan
Picture a crisp October morning in Madison, Wisconsin – the bright colors of fall leaves, mists over the blue waters of Lake Mendota and – on one Sunday (the 14th this year) – a crowd of excited people waiting to run, walk or roll in the 2018 Waisman Whirl for ALL Abilities!
Blockages in nerve-cell protein ‘factory’ implicated in neurodegenerative disease
Research by Waisman affiliate Jon Audhya shows new insight into the molecular basis underlying the neurodegenerative condition, hereditary spastic paraplegia (HPS). His recent study shows how a mutation in the TFG gene–one of several linked …
Scientists discover cause of aging-related disease in mice, then reverse its symptoms
In a study published in Aging Cell, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison show that mice making too much of a human protein called AT-1 show signs of early aging and premature death, which are …
Progress made toward treatment for rare, fatal neurological disease
After more than a decade of work, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Waisman Center reported promising results in the lab and in animal models that could set the stage for developing a treatment for Alexander disease, a rare and usually fatal neurological disease with no known cure.
The chatter within our cells
Waisman Center investigator Luigi Puglielli had trouble with only one class in medical school: biochemistry. Yet today he uses biochemical approaches to study some of the vital molecular mechanisms that regulate brain physiology and pathology …
Machine learning can detect a genetic disorder from speech recordings
How much information can we extract from a five-minute recording of someone talking? Enough to tell whether that individual may be genetically predisposed to some health complications, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s …
Genetics and stress interact to shape human health and well-being
This is a story of nature and nurture. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Waisman Center have shown one way in which human genetics and chronic stress interact to shape health and well-being later in …
Researchers make headway toward understanding Alexander disease
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have made a surprising and potentially crucial discovery about Alexander disease, a rare and fatal neurological disorder with no known cure. Using a mouse model for this disease, which …