PROMISING NEW DRUG THERAPIES
NB This information is intended for the information of medically-qualified personnel. If you are a patient, please bear in mind that, where a drug is in clinical trials, it may be many years from becoming available as a prescription drug. It may, of course, fail the trial. Please refer all queries re prescription drugs to your family doctor or consultant physician. Last webpage review: 15 February 2011
NB This information is intended for the information of medically-qualified personnel. If you are a patient, please bear in mind that, where a drug is in clinical trials, it may be many years from becoming available as a prescription drug. It may, of course, fail the trial. Please refer all queries re prescription drugs to your family doctor or consultant physician. Last webpage review: 15 February 2011
New drug “dampens
sensitivity to loud noises”
New Scientist Magazine reports that the first trial of a drug intended to rebalance the brain chemistry of people with autism has helped symptoms in most of the 25 volunteers who tested it - with reductions in irritability and tantrums, and improvements in social skills.
Arbaclofen is intended to rebalance brain chemistry, said to be awry in people with autism spectrum disorders. "We are trying to normalise signalling functions within the brain," says Randall Carpenter of Seaside Therapeutics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The firm is developing arbaclofen as a generic under the name STX209.
Previous studies suggest that people with autism produce too much of the neurotransmitter glutamate in the brain, which ramps up neural activity. They may also make too little gamma- amino butyric acid (GABA), which dampens activity down.
"Too much activation with glutamate makes people with autism very sensitive to loud noises and other, sudden changes in the environment, increasing anxiety and fear," says Carpenter. Arbaclofen normalises this imbalance. "It may stop them being oversensitive".
Source: “Autism drug aims to balance brain signals”, Andy Coghlan, New Scientist, 15 September 2010, issue 2778.
New Scientist Magazine reports that the first trial of a drug intended to rebalance the brain chemistry of people with autism has helped symptoms in most of the 25 volunteers who tested it - with reductions in irritability and tantrums, and improvements in social skills.
Arbaclofen is intended to rebalance brain chemistry, said to be awry in people with autism spectrum disorders. "We are trying to normalise signalling functions within the brain," says Randall Carpenter of Seaside Therapeutics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The firm is developing arbaclofen as a generic under the name STX209.
Previous studies suggest that people with autism produce too much of the neurotransmitter glutamate in the brain, which ramps up neural activity. They may also make too little gamma- amino butyric acid (GABA), which dampens activity down.
"Too much activation with glutamate makes people with autism very sensitive to loud noises and other, sudden changes in the environment, increasing anxiety and fear," says Carpenter. Arbaclofen normalises this imbalance. "It may stop them being oversensitive".
Source: “Autism drug aims to balance brain signals”, Andy Coghlan, New Scientist, 15 September 2010, issue 2778.
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