Study Finds That Ketamine Might Work Well As Treatment For Kids With ADNP Syndrome.

Sep, 2022 - By WMR

Low-dose ketamine may be neuroprotective and increase the expression of the ADNP gene, according to the research team. Ketamine was generally well-tolerated as a treatment for depression and had no noticeable adverse effects.

Rare neurodevelopmental disorder Helsmoortel-VanDerAa syndrome is brought along to alterations in the activity dependent neuroprotective protein gene. The ADNP gene has an impact on the development, growth, and function of the brain, and the protein it produces aids in regulating the expression of other genes. Ketamine is used for anaesthesia, pain management, and recently as a treatment for depression, according to a recent study. According to studies done on animal models, Low-dose ketamine may be neuroprotective and boost the expression of the ADNP gene. The team also focus on DNA methylation analysis, which has been previously characterised as being important in the ADNP syndrome, is currently being used in research to evaluate changes in the expression of the ADNP gene and other genes. Neurodevelopmental problems have been associated with an increased prevalence of unusual and severe DNA methylation levels.

A single-dose (0.5mg/kg), open-label design with 40 minutes of intravenous ketamine infusion was employed by the research team to assess the impact of the drug. Ten ADNP syndrome patients were participated.Their age was lower than 12 years. Researchers have noted some negative effects in patients, including 50% experiencing elation and 40% experiencing greater aggressiveness. Ketamine was typically well accepted, and no significant side events were discovered, according to the research team. A week after administration, ketamine was linked to improvements in a variety of areas, including social conduct, attention deficit and hyperactivity, limited and repetitive behaviours, and sensory sensitivity, according to parent-report tests used to evaluate treatment outcomes.

The Clinical Global Impression-Improvement scale, a seven-point scale frequently used by clinicians to gauge how much a patient's illness has improved or gotten worse relative to a baseline state at the beginning of an intervention.It showed improvement based on the results from the clinician-rated assessments. It's significant that the outcomes of assessments conducted with caregivers and clinicians were broadly consistent. The findings also point to the potential of using computerised eye tracking and electrophysiological measurements of a listening task known as the auditory steady-state response to detect potential changes in social attention.