Eduardo Villamor
University of Michigan, MI·Public Health & Epidemiology
Neurodevelopmental disorders, conditions such as autism and ADHD that arise as the brain develops, are debilitating for individuals and costly to society. Their causes are only partly understood.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
- Topics
neurodevelopmental disorders
autism spectrum disorder
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2030
What they work on
- Build a whole-country cohort of more than 1.4 million grandmother–parent–grandchild triads by linking nationwide Swedish registries.
- Test whether grandmaternal pregnancy factors on both maternal and paternal sides, including body mass index, smoking, age, parity, stress and pregnancy-induced disease, are associated with grandchildren's risk of autism, ADHD, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy and epilepsy.
- Examine whether parents' own birth characteristics, including gestational age, birth weight and neonatal disease, predict their children's neurodevelopmental disorder risk.
- Use negative-exposure and family comparisons to assess confounding by shared genes and environment, and causal mediation analysis to test whether effects act independently of parents' postnatal health.
More about the research
Evidence suggests that some causes, including ones that can be changed, act before or around birth, when the brain is especially sensitive. Animal research further suggests that exposures in grandparents may be passed down through epigenetic mechanisms, chemical marks that change how genes are used without altering the DNA sequence. Evidence for this in humans is almost nonexistent.
Why it matters
Identifying pregnancy and birth factors in one generation that affect the next generation's risk of autism, ADHD, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy and epilepsy could reveal modifiable exposures. Some of these, such as smoking or body weight during pregnancy, could become targets for prevention. This could benefit the health of future grandchildren.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Abraham Reichenberg
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
Measure early Alzheimer's disease and related dementia (ADRD) risk in adults with autism using Swedish national registers, testing modifiers including sex, intellectual disability, ADHD and epilepsy.
Christopher Cowan
Medical University of South Carolina, SC·Neuroscience
Mentor early-career scientists studying neurodevelopmental disorders toward independent NIH funding, using a mentoring plan that pairs each with internal and external mentors.
Matthew Engelhard
Duke University, NC·Computer Science·Early-career
Develop machine-learning models that predict autism spectrum disorder and ADHD from early electronic health record data, such as diagnosis codes, labs, vitals and clinical notes, while correcting for differences in health care use.
The school
University of Michigan: 124 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 963 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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