Abstract
Recent decades have been marked by a wave drug treatment research in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This work has resulted in improved ability to treat commonly occurring behavioral challenges associated with ASD including most prominently irritability marked by aggression, self-injurious behavior, and severe tantrums. While treatment of interfering behavior has progressed in our field, there remain several areas of unmet medical need including most prominently a lack of any approved drug therapies for the core, defining symptoms of autism. We outline the progress to date in the field of autism drug treatment while taking a future look forward into how decades of work can inform better future steps in this field.
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This work was supported in part by the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
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EH and ML were responsible for reviewing the literature and writing the initial manuscript. KD and CE reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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The authors declare that they have no interests that compete directly with this work, though Drs. Lamy and Erickson do receive research support from various sources for other work. Dr. Lamy’s current research is supported by OVID Therapeutics and the Simon’s Foundation. Dr. Erickson has received current and/or past research support from the National Institutes of Health, the United States Department of Defense, the United States Centers for Disease Control, the John Merck Fund, Autism Speaks, the Simons Foundation, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Research Foundation, the FRAXA Research Foundation, the National Fragile X Foundation, the Roche Group, Seaside Therapeutics, Novartis, Stalicla, Scioto Bioscience, Janssen, Neuren, Alcobra, and Indiana University School of Medicine. He is a current consultant to Impel, Forge Therapeutics, and Stalicla. He holds equity interest in and is a consultant to Confluence Pharmaceuticals. He is the inventor on intellectual property held by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Research Foundation and Indiana University describing methods for diagnosis and treatment methods in autism spectrum disorder and fragile X syndrome.
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Henneberry, E., Lamy, M., Dominick, K.C. et al. Decades of Progress in the Psychopharmacology of Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 4370–4394 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05237-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05237-9