Retinitis pigmentosa (RP), one of the most frequently occurring blinding retinal dystrophies, is characterized functionally not only by nightblindness and peripheral visual field defects, but also by impaired foveal vision. The University of Illinois Research Center of the National Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation Fighting Blindness has a cohort of approximately 900 well-categorized patients with RP who actively and frequently participate in basic and clinical research projects. Properly posed psychophysical tests on carefully selected individuals and subgroups of patients from this cohort provide a unique opportunity to assess the nature of the underlying pathophysiologic defects in retinal dystrophy, as well as to determine basic neural mechanisms for normal visual function. The results of such studies will also lead to the earlier detection of vision loss in RP, to more precise characterization of visual impairment in individual patients, to optimization of visual rehabilitation (low vision aids), and to more sensitive evaluation of potential therapeutic regimens. The goals of this research project are to test specific hypotheses concerning retinal functioning RP. Specifically, the project will determine the impact of RP on spatiotemporal mechanisms of vision and the ability of patients with particular subtypes of RP to process spatial and temporal visual information. In doing so, the research will also further clarify the extent and underlying mechanisms of foveal impairment in RP.
The specific aims are: (1) to assess the contribution of irregularity in receptor sampling to foveal dysfunction in RP, (2) to evaluate the significance of contrast polarity and temporal parameters in the measurement of contrast sensitivity for letter identification, (3) to ascertain the relationship between detection of spatially localized, frequency band-limited visual stimuli and the complex task of letter identification, (4) to define the effect of light adaptation on properties of spatial mechanisms, and (5) to dissect the relative contributions of abnormalities in spatial vision and adaptation to temporal sensitivity losses in RP patients.
| McAnany, J Jason; Alexander, Kenneth R; Genead, Mohamed A et al. (2013) Equivalent intrinsic noise, sampling efficiency, and contrast sensitivity in patients with retinitis pigmentosa. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 54:3857-62 |
| Gowrisankaran, Sowjanya; McAnany, J Jason; Alexander, Kenneth R (2013) Poststimulus response characteristics of the human cone flicker electroretinogram. Vis Neurosci 30:147-52 |
| McAnany, J Jason; Alexander, Kenneth R; Kumar, Nalin M et al. (2013) Electroretinographic findings in a patient with congenital stationary night blindness due to a novel NYX mutation. Ophthalmic Genet 34:167-73 |
| Gowrisankaran, Sowjanya; Genead, Mohamed A; Anastasakis, Anastasios et al. (2013) Characteristics of late negative ERG responses elicited by sawtooth flicker. Doc Ophthalmol 126:9-19 |
| Gowrisankaran, Sowjanya; Alexander, Kenneth R (2012) Stimulus chromatic properties affect period doubling in the human cone flicker ERG. Doc Ophthalmol 125:21-9 |
| Dhingra, Anuradha; Fina, Marie E; Neinstein, Adam et al. (2011) Autoantibodies in melanoma-associated retinopathy target TRPM1 cation channels of retinal ON bipolar cells. J Neurosci 31:3962-7 |
| McAnany, J Jason; Alexander, Kenneth R; Lim, Jennifer I et al. (2011) Object frequency characteristics of visual acuity. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 52:9534-8 |
| McAnany, J Jason; Shahidi, Mahnaz; Applegate, Raymond A et al. (2011) Contributions of optical and non-optical blur to variation in visual acuity. Optom Vis Sci 88:716-23 |
| Gowrisankaran, Sowjanya; Anastasakis, Anastasios; Fishman, Gerald A et al. (2011) Structural and functional measures of inner retinal integrity following visual acuity improvement in a patient with hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy type VI. Ophthalmic Genet 32:188-92 |
| Shah, Manthan R; Alexander, Kenneth R; Ripps, Harris et al. (2010) Characteristics of period doubling in the rat cone flicker ERG. Exp Eye Res 90:196-202 |
Showing the most recent 10 out of 80 publications
