Research into Charles Bonnet Syndrome receives funding

Fight for Sight, has partnered with the Thomas Pocklington Trust and Esme’s Umbrella to award a £15,000 grant to fund research into Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS).

The sight loss research charity made the announcement to coincide with the first-ever Charles Bonnet Awareness Day, which takes place today (16 November).

Fight for Sight explained that over 100,000 people in the UK live with CBS, which is a side effect of sight loss that produces vivid hallucinations.

Currently, there is no treatment for CBS but now a team led by Dr Greg Elder at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne will carry out an investigation to better understand the condition and identify ways to prevent hallucinations. 

The team will look at the differences in brain activity between people whose sight loss gives them visual hallucinations, and people with the same sight loss who do not hallucinate. 

The founder of Esme’s Umbrella, Judith Potts, launched the charity in memory of her mother who experienced CBS. She described the funding announcement as “a great step forward in much-needed research.” 

“With the support of Fight for Sight and Thomas Pocklington Trust, one of the myriad of questions that surrounds CBS will have a chance to be answered by Dr Greg Elder and his team,” Ms Potts said.

The CEO of Fight for Sight, Michele Acton, and the Thomas Pocklington Trust’s research and policy director, Phil Ambler, both said they were “delighted” to be working in partnership to identify ways to tackle CBS.