“Fragile X-Associated Disorders: A Woman’s View from the Heart of the Family,” is the topic of the December UC Davis MIND Institute Distinguished Lecture Series presentation.

The speaker will be Stephanie L. Sherman, professor in the department of human genetics at Emory University in Atlanta. She will explore how fragile X syndrome affects women, both as patients and as caregivers for their family members with fragile X-related disorders.

Her lecture will run from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 11, in the MIND Institute auditorium at 2825 50th St. in Sacramento. The event is free and open to the public, and no reservations are required.

Sherman will discuss the clinical consequences of the fragile X premutation among women and emphasize the need for further study of interventions to ensure that women, who are at the heart of families with fragile X-associated disorders, can themselves have full and healthy lives and, at the same time, facilitate better lives for their family members.

All mothers of children with fragile X syndrome carry a mutation in the FMR1 gene, which increases the risk of at least three clinically significant manifestations among women.

First, during transmission from parent to child, this allele can expand to the full mutation, leading to fragile X syndrome. This expansion occurs only during transmission of the mutation from mother to child, not from father to child.

Second, the premutation leads to an increased risk for fragile X-associated primary ovarian insufficiency, a disorder that can lead to sub-fertility and to other clinical consequences associated with early estrogen deficiency.

Third, the premutation is associated with fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome, a neurodegenerative disorder that is more common in men who carry the premutation but also occurs in women.

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