About me
Cerebellar pathologies are often found in people with autism, and cerebellar lesions at birth lead to a significant autism-risk. These observations brought me to investigate the role of the cerebellum in autism. In 2018, I was awarded a VIDI starting grant from The Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) to work on understanding the cerebello-cerebral networks underlying shared autistic traits. In my laboratory, we develop novel automated methods to test behavioural phenotypes of autism-mouse models (Wahl et al. 2022 eNeuro and Wahl et al. 2023 preprint). We have also shown that TSC1 haploinsufficiency, which is often comorbid with autism, leads to the aberrant development of inhibitory cells in the developing cerebellum (Serra et al. 2022). In the last three years, my laboratory has developed extensive collaborations with Departments of Immunology to study the causal role of primary immunodeficiency on increased autism risk (Kaiser et al. 2022). By combining mouse models with the patients’ data my laboratory aims to explain how mutations can leads to both autism and immune deficits. In 2023 together with my collaborators we were awarded an NWA-ORC 2022 grant of 5.3 mln Euro to study how genetic, neurophysiological and behavioral sex differences contribute to the presence and severity of autism characteristics, and to distinguish these biological factors from potential diagnostic bias. The long-term goal of the SCANNER project is to improve the autism diagnostic process by introducing novel sex-sensitive solutions applicable in clinical settings and eHealth care.
