{"id":49290,"date":"2025-10-01T15:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T15:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/49290\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T15:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T15:13:07","slug":"alzheimers-drug-shows-surprising-benefits-for-some-kids-with-autism-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/49290\/","title":{"rendered":"Alzheimer’s Drug Shows Surprising Benefits For Some Kids With Autism : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

A drug used to slow Alzheimer’s<\/a> disease may help improve social behaviors in some children with autism spectrum disorder<\/a> (ASD).<\/p>\n

The results of a small clinical trial<\/a> are promising, although not yet conclusive. They suggest that a specific subset of young people with ASD<\/a> may experience positive outcomes from taking memantine, despite previous studies<\/a> finding no clear benefits.<\/p>\n

Memantine<\/a> (sometimes sold under the brand name Namenda) is an oral medication that blocks the brain’s receptors for glutamate<\/a> \u2013 a neurotransmitter that can be toxic in high amounts. Reducing glutamate across the brain can help slow the progression of neurodegenerative conditions.<\/p>\n

A brain region particularly rich in glutamate receptors is the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex<\/a> (pgACC), which is involved in social processing and emotional awareness.<\/p>\n

Related: Brain Scans Show Neuron Structures Look Different in Kids With Autism<\/a><\/p>\n

Some evidence suggests that glutamate can be imbalanced in the pgACC in individuals with ASD, possibly explaining behaviors and symptoms related to communication and social interactions.<\/p>\n

\"CingulateLocation of the cingulate cortex in the human brain. (Overbye et al., Dev. Cog. Neuro.<\/a>, 2019)<\/p>\n

In 2017, however, a clinical trial<\/a> found that taking memantine provided no significant benefit to the social responsiveness of children with ASD<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University have led a new clinical trial to follow up on those results, evaluating the drug’s effect at higher doses and among a more specific subset of children.<\/p>\n

Their randomized trial was completed by 33 young people without intellectual disability, aged 8 to 17, who were predominantly male. Half the group took 20 milligrams of memantine daily for 12 weeks, while the other half took a placebo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The best responders to memantine were individuals who exhibited abnormally high glutamate levels in the pgACC.<\/p>\n

Among these children, adult caregivers reported memantine improving communication, interaction, and engagement with others significantly more than a placebo.<\/p>\n

While the results are promising, the authors of the study caution that larger clinical trials<\/a> are needed before any definitive conclusions can be made.<\/p>\n

Even if memantine does turn out to improve the lives of children with ASD, it may only benefit some individuals.<\/p>\n

Among all the participants in the recent clinical trial, just over half showed abnormally elevated glutamate levels in the pgACC.<\/p>\n

Previous trials, like the one from 2017, may have overlooked this significant result because they did not hone in on subsets of ASD.<\/p>\n

Autism<\/a> exists on a spectrum, encompassing a vast range of conditions<\/a>, with large variations in symptoms and severity<\/a>, impacted by the complex interplay<\/a> of genetics<\/a> and environmental factors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is very probably no single cause<\/a> behind the disorder<\/a>, which means that one single treatment is unlikely to be effective or necessary<\/a> for all.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, researchers behind the recent clinical trial think<\/a> that memantine has the potential to improve outcomes for a “substantial proportion of patients, with minimal unnecessary exposure to those who may not benefit.”<\/p>\n

The team calls for further research.<\/p>\n

The study was published in JAMA<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A drug used to slow Alzheimer’s disease may help improve social behaviors in some children with autism spectrum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[163,85,46,371],"class_list":["post-49290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-msft-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}