Alzheimer | autism | drug therapy | immune | memantine
The Alzheimer drug memantine may help with language, behavior and self-stimulating behavior in people with autism.
Some doctors believe that the immune system of children with autism acts on the brain to stop nerve cells from talking to each other. This open-label study was designed to see if memantine therapy can help people (aged 2-26) with autism by helping those nerve cells talk to each other. The study did not have placebo controls and therefore could not control for any bias from the parents or doctors who were reporting on the patients. The study lasted 21 months and found that patients did better when they were treated with memantine. Memantine was given as an add-on therapy to whatever other therapies the children were getting and it did not cause any serious side effects.
Or subscribe to feed using a feed reader.
