Jet Vonk, PhD
Assistant Professor
Neurology
School of Medicine

She also maintains an affiliation with the Department of Epidemiology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where she is currently obtaining a second PhD in Epidemiology.

Her research focuses on the timing and mechanisms of cognitive decline in relation to aging and dementia using linguistic, neuroimaging, and epidemiological methods. Her overall goal is to investigate the evolution of language use and cognitive decline throughout the course of dementia to help accurate and timely diagnosis, with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease and primary progressive aphasia. Previous work has focused on detecting subtle semantic memory impairment in preclinical dementia, developing novel cognitive markers related to biomarkers and future clinical outcomes, and investigating the effects of biological and sociodemographic variables on cognitive and language decline.

Her work is funded by an NWO Talent Programme Veni Grant and NIH K99/R00 Award. A complete list of her published peer-reviewed work is available here.

• The role of cognitive and brain reserve in memory decline and atrophy rate in mid and late-life: The SMART-MR study.
  Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior 2022 Vonk JMJ, Ghaznawi R, Zwartbol MHT, Stern Y, Geerlings MI, UCC-SMART-Study Group
• Association of childhood maltreatment and cortisol with the severity and stability of depression symptoms.
  Journal of affective disorders 2021 Scarth M, Vonk JMJ, Gerritsen L, GGeerlings MI, UCC-SMART Study Group
• Predictors of Incident Mild Cognitive Impairment and Its Course in a Diverse Community-Based Population.
  Neurology 2021 Angevaare MJ, Vonk JMJ, Bertola L, Zahodne L, Watson CW, Boehme A, Schupf N, Mayeux R, Geerlings MI, Manly JJ
• Cross-sectional associations of tau protein biomarkers with semantic and episodic memory in older adults without dementia: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
  Ageing research reviews 2021 Pelgrim TAD, Beran M, Twait EL, Geerlings MI, Vonk JMJ
• Midlife Vascular Factors and Prevalence of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Late-Life in Mexico.
  Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS 2021 Arce Rentería M, Manly JJ, Vonk JMJ, Mejia Arango S, Michaels Obregon A, Samper-Ternent R, Wong R, Barral S, Tosto G
• Dementia risk in the general population: large-scale external validation of prediction models in the AGES-Reykjavik study.
  European journal of epidemiology 2021 Vonk JMJ, Greving JP, Gudnason V, Launer LJ, Geerlings MI
• Cross-sectional associations of amyloid burden with semantic cognition in older adults without dementia: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
  Mechanisms of ageing and development 2020 Vonk JMJ, Twait EL, Scholten RJPM, Geerlings MI
• Demographic Effects on Longitudinal Semantic Processing, Working Memory, and Cognitive Speed.
  The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences 2020 Vonk JMJ, Higby E, Nikolaev A, Cahana-Amitay D, Spiro A, Albert ML, Obler LK
• Education differentially contributes to cognitive reserve across racial/ethnic groups.
  Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association 2020 Avila JF, Rentería MA, Jones RN, Vonk JMJ, Turney I, Sol K, Seblova D, Arias F, Hill-Jarrett T, Levy SA, Meyer O, Racine AM, Tom SE, Melrose RJ, Deters K, Medina LD, Carrión CI, Díaz-Santos M, Byrd DR…
• Semantic loss marks early Alzheimer's disease-related neurodegeneration in older adults without dementia.
  Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands) 2020 Vonk JMJ, Bouteloup V, Mangin JF, Dubois B, Blanc F, Gabelle A, Ceccaldi M, Annweiler C, Krolak-Salmon P, Belin C, Rivasseau-Jonveaux T, Julian A, Sellal F, Magnin E, Chupin M, Habert MO, Chêne G, …
• Family Ties and Aging in a Multiethnic Cohort.
  Journal of aging and health 2020 Ying G, Vonk JMJ, Sol K, Brickman AM, Manly JJ, Zahodne LB
• Illiteracy, dementia risk, and cognitive trajectories among older adults with low education.
  Neurology 2019 Arce Rentería M, Vonk JMJ, Felix G, Avila JF, Zahodne LB, Dalchand E, Frazer KM, Martinez MN, Shouel HL, Manly JJ
• Secular trends in cognitive trajectories of diverse older adults.
  Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association 2019 Vonk JMJ, Arce Rentería M, Avila JF, Schupf N, Noble JM, Mayeux R, Brickman AM, Manly JJ
• Sex/gender differences in cognitive trajectories vary as a function of race/ethnicity.
  Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association 2019 Avila JF, Vonk JMJ, Verney SP, Witkiewitz K, Arce Rentería M, Schupf N, Mayeux R, Manly JJ
• Systematic review of subjective memory measures to inform assessing memory limitations after stroke and stroke-related aphasia.
  Disability and rehabilitation 2019 Salis C, Murray L, Vonk JMJ
• Semantic and lexical features of words dissimilarly affected by non-fluent, logopenic, and semantic primary progressive aphasia.
  Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS 2019 Vonk JMJ, Jonkers R, Hubbard HI, Gorno-Tempini ML, Brickman AM, Obler LK
• Verbal Semantics and the Left Dorsolateral Anterior Temporal Lobe: A Longitudinal Case of Bilateral Temporal Degeneration.
  Aphasiology 2019 Vonk JMJ, Borghesani V, Battistella G, Younes K, DeLeon J, Welch A, Hubbard HI, Miller ZA, Miller BL, Gorno-Tempini ML
• Measurement invariance of neuropsychological measures of cognitive aging across race/ethnicity by sex/gender groups.
  Neuropsychology 2019 Avila JF, Rentería MA, Witkiewitz K, Verney SP, Vonk JMJ, Manly JJ
• Dynamic change of cognitive reserve: associations with changes in brain, cognition, and diagnosis.
  Neurobiology of aging 2019 Bettcher BM, Gross AL, Gavett BE, Widaman KF, Fletcher E, Dowling NM, Buckley RF, Arenaza-Urquijo EM, Zahodne LB, Hohman TJ, Vonk JMJ, Rentz DM, Mungas D
• Letter and Category Fluency Performance Correlates with Distinct Patterns of Cortical Thickness in Older Adults.
  Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) 2019 Vonk JMJ, Rizvi B, Lao PJ, Budge M, Manly JJ, Mayeux R, Brickman AM
• Levels of Abstractness in Semantic Noun and Verb Processing: The Role of Sensory-Perceptual and Sensory-Motor Information.
  Journal of psycholinguistic research 2019 Vonk JMJ, Obler LK, Jonkers R
• Education Moderates the Relation Between APOE ɛ4 and Memory in Nondemented Non-Hispanic Black Older Adults.
  Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD 2019 Vonk JMJ, Arce Rentería M, Medina VM, Pericak-Vance MA, Byrd GS, Haines J, Brickman AM, Manly JJ
• Semantic network function captured by word frequency in nondemented APOE ε4 carriers.
  Neuropsychology 2018 Vonk JMJ, Flores RJ, Rosado D, Qian C, Cabo R, Habegger J, Louie K, Allocco E, Brickman AM, Manly JJ
• A cross-linguistic comparison of category and letter fluency: Mandarin and English.
  Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) 2018 Eng N, Vonk JMJ, Salzberger M, Yoo N
• The Contribution of Semantic Features to the White Matter Pathways of Tool Processing.
  The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2015 Vonk JMJ