Paula Desplats

Dr. Paula Desplats is a neuroscientist at the Ohio State University, where she holds the Clayton Wagner endowed Professorship for Parkinson’s disease research and serves as the Vicechair for Research at the Department of Neurology. Her work aims to understand why brain cells become damaged in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Her research has led to key discoveries in how disease-related proteins spread between neurons and how epigenetic changes influence disease progression. She is a leader in the emerging field of neuroepigenetics and has helped identify biomarkers that track disease over time in large patient cohorts. Her current research focuses on how disruptions in the body’s internal clock affect brain health, particularly through changes in gene expression and cellular function. By combining advanced molecular tools with innovative lifestyle-based approaches such as time-restricted feeding, her work seeks to develop practical strategies to slow or prevent neurodegeneration. She currently leads multiple federally and privately funded studies, including clinical efforts to translate circadian-based therapies to patients.