Grant: Project Grant

Altered visual processing characterizes several syndromic and idiopathic autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). These deficits appear early and predict the maladaptive social behaviors that characterize ASD. Such visual percepts in typically developing brains arise when internal states focus the brain on the most behaviorally important visual stimuli, suggesting that this attentional mechanism is altered in ASD. To learn more, we will investigate the role of the neurotransmitter serotonin (5HT) in visual attention and detection behaviors because it is a major carrier of internal-state information in the brain and since its levels are altered in ASD. Using mice trained to direct their attention during a visually guided behavior, we will: (1) determine how 5HT neurons encode attention; (2) Determine the effect of 5HT on neurons in the visual thalamus and visual cortex; (3) Link altered 5HT release with visual deficits in a mouse model of Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), the single most common genetic mutation associated with ASD. These studies will link 5HT modulation of visual processing to the detection of salient visual stimuli and will investigate how this link is altered in FXS. Our insights and tools will offer tangible routes to address 5HT modulation in higher brain areas and address deficits in 5HT modulation in FXS.