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A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism

BACKGROUND: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by repetitive behaviours, cognitive rigidity/inflexibility, and social-affective impairment. Unfortunately, no gold-standard treatments exist to alleviate the core socio-behavioural impairments of ASD. Meanwhil...

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Autores principales: Chaliha, Devahuti, Mamo, John C., Albrecht, Matthew, Lam, Virginie, Takechi, Ryu, Vaccarezza, Mauro
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Bentham Science Publishers 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8686313/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33388021
http://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1570159X19666210101130258
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author Chaliha, Devahuti
Mamo, John C.
Albrecht, Matthew
Lam, Virginie
Takechi, Ryu
Vaccarezza, Mauro
author_facet Chaliha, Devahuti
Mamo, John C.
Albrecht, Matthew
Lam, Virginie
Takechi, Ryu
Vaccarezza, Mauro
author_sort Chaliha, Devahuti
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by repetitive behaviours, cognitive rigidity/inflexibility, and social-affective impairment. Unfortunately, no gold-standard treatments exist to alleviate the core socio-behavioural impairments of ASD. Meanwhile, the prosocial empathogen/entactogen 3,4-methylene-dioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) is known to enhance sociability and empathy in both humans and animal models of psychological disorders. OBJECTIVE: We review the evidence obtained from behavioural tests across the current literature, showing how MDMA can induce prosocial effects in animals and humans, where controlled experiments were able to be performed. METHODS: Six electronic databases were consulted. The search strategy was tailored to each database. Only English-language papers were reviewed. Behaviours not screened in this review may have affected the core ASD behaviours studied. Molecular analogues of MDMA have not been investigated. RESULTS: We find that the social impairments may potentially be alleviated by postnatal administration of MDMA producing prosocial behaviours in mostly the animal model. CONCLUSION: MDMA and/or MDMA-like molecules appear to be an effective pharmacological treatment for the social impairments of autism, at least in animal models. Notably, clinical trials based on MDMA use are now in progress. Nevertheless, larger and more extended clinical studies are warranted to prove the assumption that MDMA and MDMA-like molecules have a role in the management of the social impairments of autism.
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spelling pubmed-86863132022-01-14 A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism Chaliha, Devahuti Mamo, John C. Albrecht, Matthew Lam, Virginie Takechi, Ryu Vaccarezza, Mauro Curr Neuropharmacol Article BACKGROUND: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by repetitive behaviours, cognitive rigidity/inflexibility, and social-affective impairment. Unfortunately, no gold-standard treatments exist to alleviate the core socio-behavioural impairments of ASD. Meanwhile, the prosocial empathogen/entactogen 3,4-methylene-dioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) is known to enhance sociability and empathy in both humans and animal models of psychological disorders. OBJECTIVE: We review the evidence obtained from behavioural tests across the current literature, showing how MDMA can induce prosocial effects in animals and humans, where controlled experiments were able to be performed. METHODS: Six electronic databases were consulted. The search strategy was tailored to each database. Only English-language papers were reviewed. Behaviours not screened in this review may have affected the core ASD behaviours studied. Molecular analogues of MDMA have not been investigated. RESULTS: We find that the social impairments may potentially be alleviated by postnatal administration of MDMA producing prosocial behaviours in mostly the animal model. CONCLUSION: MDMA and/or MDMA-like molecules appear to be an effective pharmacological treatment for the social impairments of autism, at least in animal models. Notably, clinical trials based on MDMA use are now in progress. Nevertheless, larger and more extended clinical studies are warranted to prove the assumption that MDMA and MDMA-like molecules have a role in the management of the social impairments of autism. Bentham Science Publishers 2021-06-23 2021-06-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8686313/ /pubmed/33388021 http://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1570159X19666210101130258 Text en © 2021 Bentham Science Publishers https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Article
Chaliha, Devahuti
Mamo, John C.
Albrecht, Matthew
Lam, Virginie
Takechi, Ryu
Vaccarezza, Mauro
A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism
title A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism
title_full A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism
title_fullStr A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism
title_full_unstemmed A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism
title_short A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism
title_sort systematic review of the mdma model to address social impairment in autism
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8686313/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33388021
http://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1570159X19666210101130258
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