In 1996—early in her career at UMN—Ashe was the first author on a paper published in Science, entitled "Correlative memory deficits, Aβ elevation, and amyloid plaques in transgenic mice", describing a mouse model of Alzheimers disease, which furthered her rising star as a scientist; the mice are used in research around the world, and students and scientists "come from all over the world to work with her", according to the Star Tribune. In 2006, three of her research papers made a list of the eighteen papers that had contributed the most to Alzheimers research.
Ashe is a co-author on a 2006 paper published in Nature, entitled "A specific amyloid-β protein assembly in the brain impairs memory". The paper describes the Aβ*56 oligomer (known as amyloid beta star 56 and Aβ*56) correlating with memory loss in mice prior to the appearance of amyloid plaques. According to a Science article, in 2022 the paper was the fifth-highest cited paper in Alzheimers research, with approximately 2,300 other articles citing it. The Guardian says the paper was "highly influential" and calls it "one of the most cited pieces of Alzheimers disease research in the last two decades", writing that it has "dominated the field" of research. The Daily Telegraph states that the "seminal research paper" led to increased drug research funding worldwide. The paper was discussed at the Alzheimer Research Forum as a "star is born".
In 2015, Ashe was a co-author on a paper entitled "Quaternary structure defines a large class of amyloid-beta oligomers neutralized by sequestration", which defines two forms of Aβ based on quaternary structure, type 1 and type 2, that have different effects on memory function in mice. Type 1 is dispersed in the brain and associated with impaired memory. Type 2 is entrapped in amyloid plaques and does not impair memory. In 2020, she published a review summarizing this work, entitled "The biogenesis and biology of amyloid β oligomers in the brain".