Risperidone in the Treatment of Pervasive Developmental Disorder

1994 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 400-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scot E. Purdon ◽  
Wilson Lit ◽  
Alain Labelle ◽  
Barry D.W. Jones

Elevated concentrations of blood serotonin have been documented in autistic children and mentally retarded adults. Antiserotonergic pharmacotherapy has been partially effective in treating a subgroup of children with autistic disorder. Therefore, the possibility is raised that an antiserotonergic treatment may be of value to adult psychiatric patients with a history of pervasive developmental disorder. Two such cases are described where the patients underwent psychiatric and neuropsychological examination before and after treatment with risperidone, a potent 5-HT2 antagonist with additional D2 antagonistic properties. Particular improvements were documented in both patients, despite long histories of cognitive compromise and high likelihood of damage to the central nervous system.

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 589-595
Author(s):  
John Lorber

1. The family histories of 722 infants who were born with spina bifida cystica were studied. 2. The index cases were referred for surgical treatment and were not selected in any way from the genetic point of view. 3. Intensive inquiries were made to obtain a complete family pedigree, including a prospective follow-up of siblings born after the index case. 4. Of 1,256 siblings 85 or 6.8% had gross malformation of the central nervous system: spina bifida cystica in 54, anencephaly in 22, and uncomplicated hydrocephalus in 9. 5. Of 306 children born after the index case 25 (8%) or 1 in 12 were affected. 6. There was a progressive increase in multiple cases in the family with increasing family size. In sibships of five or more, multiple cases occurred in 24.1%. 7. In 118 families cases of gross malformation of the central nervous system were known to have occurred among members of the family other than siblings. Cases occurred in three generations. 8. It is possible that spina bifida cystica might be a recessively inherited condition.


1973 ◽  
Vol 71 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvio Celso Goncalves da Costa ◽  
Samuel B. Pessoa ◽  
Neize de Moura Pereira ◽  
Tania Colombo

The main object of the present paper is to furnish a brief account to the knowledgement of Protozoa parasitic in common Brazilian frog of the genus Leptodactylus for general students in Zoology and for investigators that use this frog as a laboratory animal. Hepatozoon leptodactyli (Haemogregarina leptodactyli) was found in two species of frogs - Leptodactylus ocellatus and L. pentadactylus - in which develop schizogony whereas sporogony occurs in the leech Haementeria lutzi as was obtainded in experimental conditions. Intracellular forms have been found in peripheral circulation, chiefly in erythrocytes, but we have found them in leukocytes too. Tissue stages were found in frog, liver, lungs, spleen, gut, brain and heart. The occurence of hemogregarine in the Central Nervous System was recorded by Costa & al,(13) and Ball (2). Some cytochemical methods were employed in attempt to differentiate gametocytes from trophozoites in the peripheral blood and to characterize the cystic membrane as well. The speorogonic cycle was developed in only one specie of leech. A brief description of the parasite is given.


2007 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvana F Marasco ◽  
H Kiat Lim

INTRODUCTION Ecstasy, also known as MDMA (3,4, methylenedioxymethamphetamine), is a popular illicit party drug amongst young adults. The drug induces a state of euphoria secondary to its stimulant activity in the central nervous system. PATIENTS AND METHODS A database review at two major inner city hospitals was undertaken to identify patients presenting with pneumomediastinum and their charts reviewed. A Medline review of all reported cases of pneumomediastinum associated with ecstasy abuse was undertaken. RESULTS A total of 56 patients presenting with pneumomediastinum were identified over a 5-year period. Review of the charts revealed a history of ecstasy use in the hours prior to presentation in six of these patients, representing the largest series reported to date. CONCLUSIONS Review of previously reported cases reveals the likely mechanism is due to Valsalva manoeuvre during periods of extreme physical exertion, and not a direct pharmacological effect of the drug.


1994 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 1644-1652 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Bonora ◽  
M. Boule

The influence of steady-state changes in chemical stimuli on ventilation and electromyographic activity of the diaphragm during both inspiration (total DI) and expiration (total DE) was studied in unanesthetized intact adult cats before and after carotid denervation. In intact animals, during hypercapnia (2 4, and 6% CO2), tidal volume (VT) and total DI increase, whereas total DE did not consistently change. During ambient hypocapnic hypoxia (14, 12, and 10% O2), VT increased only at 10% O2, whereas total DI increased at all levels studied. Total DE increased substantially at 14% O2, persisting up to the end of expiration with 12 and 10% O2. This effect was markedly attenuated during normocapnic hypoxia. During CO hypoxemia (1,700 ppm in air), VT as well as total DI and total DE decreased because of a large reduction in inspiratory and expiratory time elicited by tachypneic breathing. The effects of hypercapnia and hypoxia persisted after carotid denervation. Therefore, 1) in contrast to hypercapnia, hypoxia markedly enhances the expiratory diaphragmatic activity, 1) this expiratory braking mechanism depends on the severity of hypoxia and is partly due to hypocapnia secondary to hypoxia; and 3) because this effect was observed after carotid denervation and during CO hypoxemia, it may arise in the central nervous system, possibly in bulbopontine structures.


Author(s):  
Dieter Schmidt ◽  
Simon Shorvon

Five modern antiepileptic drugs have reached the fabled blockbuster status (more than $1 billion sales per year), albeit for treatment of not only epilepsy but for other disorders of the central nervous system too. These drugs generated huge profits, and the chapter asks, how were they discovered and are they worth their money? The history of the five blockbusters—levetiracetam, lamotrigine, topiramate, gabapentin, and pregabalin—provides an interesting study of chance, science, wrong ideas, and finance, and most importantly luck. The discovery of the antiepileptic effects of some of these compounds was stumbled upon by simple good fortune, and others barely escaped an early demise during an unpromising early development. Despite the commercial success, no study has shown any of these drugs to be any more effective than older drugs, yet they made billions. This chapter examines how industry could do this and what the drivers are for success.


1963 ◽  
Vol 204 (2) ◽  
pp. 330-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulo Enéas Galvão ◽  
Jacob Tarasantchi ◽  
Carlos Alberto E. De Magalhães

The central nervous system of male adult dogs was destroyed by an injection in the cisterna magna, of a 20% NaCl solution, under 60 cm Hg pressure, during 6 min (technique of Galvão and Pereira). One hundred and sixteen O2 consumption determinations were made by analysis of the expired air or of the air pumped through the lungs, in 28 dogs, before and after CNS destruction. The metabolism level was generally well maintained during the first hours after the destruction and was materially unaltered in some dogs until death. However, in many dogs the heat production decreased more or less gradually in the later hours, and attained a mean lowering of 16.8%. The anesthesia employed, the abolition of muscle tonus and work of respiratory muscles, the respiration of the CNS, and the loss of a trophic or metabolic action of the CNS are discussed in an attempt to explain the metabolic rate of animals deprived of CNS.


1960 ◽  
Vol 106 (444) ◽  
pp. 884-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Todrick ◽  
A. C. Tait ◽  
Elizabeth F. Marshall

The interest of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5HT) for psychiatry arose originally from Gaddum's (8, 9) observation that its peripheral pharmacological actions were antagonized in a highly specific manner by a low concentration of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). This led to the hypothesis that the hallucinogenic action of LSD was due to its antagonism to 5HT in the central nervous system (Woolley and Shaw, 21; Gaddum, 7). However, Cerletti and Rothlin (5) subsequently found that brom-LSD, which is not a hallucinogen, was an equally potent antagonist of the peripheral actions of 5HT.


1958 ◽  
Vol 192 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadayuki F. Takagi ◽  
Yutaka Oomura

The effect of nicotine on synaptic transmission in the frog and cat spinal cord was studied. Both a regular wick electrode and a microelectrode of the Ling-Gerard type were used. The reflex activity of the bullfrog spinal cord is facilitated by 0.01% nicotine solution, but is depressed and abolished by 0.1% solution. In the cat, intravenous administration of 150 mg/kg fails to block reflex activity, but topical application does block. The intracellular potential, of both frog and cat motoneurones, shows no change in the synaptic potential after application of the drug, but the spike appears after a shorter synaptic delay and one or more additional spikes appear. When the synaptic delay becomes sufficiently short, however, all spikes suddenly disappear, leaving the still unchanged synaptic potential. Occasionally the synaptic delay is again increased just before the spike potentials disappear. The excitability of a frog motoneurone was measured, by a recording microelectrode, before and after nicotine application. The drug first increased and then decreases excitability. Epinephrine can restore a reflex discharge depressed or abolished by nicotine. It is concluded that high concentrations of nicotine block synaptic transmission in the central nervous system, acting on the cell body but not on the synaptic potential.


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