Alzheimer's drug could help autistic children

From Volume 3 Number 8, 2003

MOSCOW, Russia: The nootropic drug, cerebrolysin – which some researchers have shown to have a beneficial effect in treating Alzheimer's disease – may also help children with autism, according to a new Russian study.

            Nineteen children with autism and eight with Asperger's syndrome, aged two to eight years, were treated with cerebrolysin in an in-patient clinic. All the patients received 10 daily micro-injections (intramuscularly and perinervously) of 0.1 ml for five days.

            The research team, led by Dr M.G. Krasnoperova, found the therapy resulted in improvement of cognitive functions (expressive and receptive speech, fine motor and play skills). Positive effects were revealed in all the patients with Asperger's syndrome and in 89 per cent of the patients with autism, the researchers reported.

            Improvement in cognitive function development appeared to be more pronounced in the patients with Asperger's syndrome, the scientists wrote. They noted that none of the patients had suffered any side-effects to the drug.

            Cerebrolysin appears to improve mental function and behaviour in Alzheimer's disease sufferers. The drug is believed to mimic a naturally occurring growth factor in the body, resulting in the generation or support of nerve cells in the brain. Recently, Dr Xiao Shifu, of the Shanghai Mental health Centre in China, and his colleagues in the Cerebrolysin Study Group compared the effects of cerebrolysin to that of a placebo in 157 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. The findings showed that measures of mental function improved to a significantly greater degree in the patients who had received cerebrolysin compared with those who had received the placebo.

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