Zheng Wang
University of Florida, FL·Neuroscience
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong condition, yet most research focuses on children. Clinical observations and early studies suggest that autistic adults may be more vulnerable than the general population to brain diseases of aging, including early-onset dementia and movement disorders.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
Psychology
- Topics
autism spectrum disorder
autistic adults
aging
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Feb 2029
What they work on
- Quantify verbal memory retention and executive function impairments in autistic adults aged 40–65 compared with age- and sex-matched cognitively normal controls, as early signs of dementia.
- Measure dementia-related brain degeneration in the hippocampus, its tracts and frontotemporal areas of autistic adults using T1-weighted MRI, free-water diffusion MRI (FWdMRI) and amyloid PET scans.
- Quantify blood amyloid/tau/neurodegeneration (A/T/N) markers, including Aβ42/Aβ40, phosphorylated tau, NfL and GFAP, in autistic adults, and relate them to cognitive and brain-imaging findings.
- Determine whether the cerebellum and basal ganglia, deep brain regions that coordinate movement, show structural degeneration in autistic adults aged 40–60, using free-water diffusion MRI.
- Test whether abnormal brain activation during a precision grip task (functional MRI) and poor performance on balance and pointing tests reveal movement impairments linked to aging in autistic adults.
More about the research
This research measures signs of brain aging in middle-aged autistic adults. It links thinking and movement problems to changes in specific brain regions and to markers in blood, always comparing autistic adults with matched non-autistic adults.
Why it matters
Autistic adults may face a higher risk of early-onset dementia and movement disorders as they age, but these problems are rarely studied or screened for. By identifying memory, brain-imaging, blood and motor markers of brain aging in middle-aged autistic adults, this work could inform screening, diagnosis, treatment planning and monitoring for this growing, underserved population.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ruth Carper
San Diego State University, CA·Neuroscience
Track changes in brain anatomy, function and connectivity in autistic and typical adults aged 40–70 using multimodal MRI, and relate them to motor, executive and emotional changes.
Thomas M Wisniewski
New York University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Compare cognitive and neuropsychological performance yearly over five years among older adults with post-COVID cognitive symptoms, infected adults without symptoms and uninfected controls, using the CDR-SB and Uniform Data Set Version 3.
Puja Agarwal
Rush University, IL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Examine whether long-term diet, nutrients and flavonoids relate to activated microglia, the brain's immune cells, in the hippocampus and mid-frontal cortex of autopsied brains from community cohorts of older adults.
The school
University of Florida: 65 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 795 research doctorates a year.
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