Dr. Anna L. Vlasits from Northwestern University Awarded $90,000 Knights Templar Eye Foundation Grant for Fragile X Syndrome Research

Dr. Anna L. Vlasits from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois was awarded a $90,000 grant for her research entitled: The role of the retina in visual symptoms of Fragile X syndrome.

Fragile X syndrome is a developmental disorder that causes learning disabilities and autism. Autism is a set of disorders that affects around 1 in 44 children in the US, with a wide variety of visual symptoms. In Fragile X, these symptoms include hypersensitivity to light, avoiding eye contact, and sleep difficulties. These symptoms cause challenges, pain, and distress for children and challenges for their caretakers, who often highlight sleep disturbances and lack of eye contact as especially affecting quality-of-life.

Emerging evidence suggests that sensory symptoms of autism are caused, at least in part, by changes in sensory organs, in addition to changes in the brain. This includes the retina, which is the entry point to the visual system and is critical for sight and a wide variety of other visual functions, like regulating the sleep-wake cycle. However, little is known about how the retina is affected and whether changes in the retina contribute to visual symptoms in autism or Fragile X syndrome.

Dr. Vlasits is exploring the role of the retina in visual symptoms of Fragile X. This work will give her a better understanding of how retinal function is different in Fragile X and how those changes contribute to visual symptoms of Fragile X. This knowledge will provide inspiration for therapies to improve quality of life for people with Fragile X syndrome. In addition, this work can be extended to explore other forms of autism to achieve a wholistic understanding of visual function in these prevalent developmental disorders.