Wilma Sue Tilton Griffin (born January 25, 1934) is an American neuroscientist best known for her contributions regarding the role of neuroinflammation in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions.
She conceived a "cytokine cycle" by which interleukin 1 and other paracrine factors conspire with one another to create a "feed-forward" cooperativity, thus establishing the premise for a progressive disease.
After graduation, she moved with her parents to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where she worked for the Atomic Energy Commission and met and married her husband, Edmond Griffin.
Ed was also a native Arkansan and worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory to help determine the biological effects of ionizing radiation.
Although ostensibly committed to the pathogenesis of neurological aberrations in Down Syndrome, her laboratory pursued the connections of this condition to Alzheimer's disease.