Breton Asken, Ph.D., ATC

Breton Asken, PhD, ATC, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Florida. He is a Fixel Scholar in the Normal Fixel Institute for Neurological Disorders and a member of the Clinical Core of the 1Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

Dr. Asken completed bachelors degrees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Exercise & Sport Science – Athletic Training, Psychology) and was a research assistant in the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center. He then earned his doctorate in Clinical Psychology (Neuropsychology track) from the University of Florida and completed his clinical internship in neuropsychology at Brown University. Dr. Asken completed a postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center.

Dr. Asken’s research integrates multimodal biomarkers with cognitive and behavioral evaluations to study the complex associations between neuropathological changes and clinical phenotypes among patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. His sub-focus is studying the role that lifetime head trauma plays later-life neurodegenerative disease, specifically looking at hippocampal and limbic network vulnerability to developing neuropathological changes with aging.

Dr. Asken is an active clinical neuropsychologist in the UF Memory Disorders Clinic and specializes in evaluation of patients with suspected neurodegenerative disease.

Lab Recruitment (updated 10/2024): Dr. Asken will be reviewing graduate student applications for the 2024 Fall/Winter cycle for students planning to enroll in Fall 2025. However, it is not guaranteed that students will be accepted this cycle. (subject to change).

Dr. Asken is not currently recruiting postdoctoral fellows but plans to in the future. Prospective fellows should reach out to Dr. Asken to check recruitment status regularly.

Dr. Asken is a clinical neuropsychologist and evaluates patients with a range of cognitive and behavioral conditions at the Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases in the UF Memory Disorders Clinic. He specializes in neuropsychological evaluation of patients with suspected neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, as well as less common conditions including primary progressive aphasia, behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body related disorders, corticobasal syndrome, progressive supranuclear palsy, and traumatic encephalopathy syndrome.

Dr. Asken’s clinic works closely with colleagues in behavioral neurology to support multidisciplinary patient care.

Dr. Asken’s research broadly focuses on clinico-pathological heterogeneity across the spectrum of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs). He has specific interests in how lifetime head trauma exposure relates to clinical and neuropathological variability among patients with ADRD, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This work involves using a combination of neuropsychological testing, fluid-based biomarkers (blood, CSF), neuroimaging, and neuropathology to address the links between head trauma and dementia. Dr. Asken is especially interested in how biomarkers and cognitive testing can help improve diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of mixed etiology dementia, or progressive cognitive/behavioral decline in later life due to multiple co-existing neurodegenerative diseases. Prior work focused on fluid biomarkers and recovery outcomes associated with sport-related concussion, and this experience relates directly to his current interests in the later-life neurological effects of head trauma exposure, especially among former athletes. Dr. Asken has active collaborations with investigators across UF as well as multiple institutions around the country.

Individuals interested in Dr. Asken’s research lab may have diverse goals and experiences. While an ideal “fit” is someone pursuing a clinical-research career in neuropsychology and hoping to study how head trauma exposure relates to later-life neurological conditions like dementia, Dr. Asken welcomes a broad range of interests within the field of aging/Alzheimer’s disease and related causes of dementia. At a bare minimum, Dr. Asken’s expectation as a research mentor is that trainees will leave their experience excited to apply the knowledge gained about neurodegenerative syndromes and the brain changes that can cause them to their own research, clinical work, or both.

• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Biomarkers
• Brain Injury
• Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
• Clinico-Pathology of Neurodegenerative Disease
• Dementia
• Memory and cognitive disorders
• Neurodegenerative diseases of aging
• Neuropsychology
• Sports
• TDP-43 proteinopathies