IU School of Medicine Awarded $1 Million
NIH Grant for Autism Research

INDIANAPOLIS -- The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $1 million grant to the Indiana University School of Medicine for research of new drugs to treat children, adolescents and adults with autism and related developmental disorders. The five-year grant will fund a psychopharmacology research unit that will conduct clinical drug studies and investigate the effectiveness of new drugs in treating individuals with autistic disorders.

Christopher J. McDougle, M.D., is the principal investigator on the grant and is the new director of the Section of child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the IU School of Medicine. "We still have a lot to learn about the etiology of autism and about the treatments that may help people with this disorder," says McDougle, the Raymond E. Houk Professor of Psychiatry. "New research is critical so that we can improve upon treatments targeted toward the interfering behaviors associated with autism."

The characteristics of autism were first defined in 1943 by Leo Kanner, M.D., a child psychiatrist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The primary symptoms identified by Kanner included a profound impairment in social relatedness, abnormal language development, and highly stereotypic and repetitive behavior. During the 1950s many people believed children developed the disorder because parents were neglectful or because of dysfunctional family environments. Now, autism is recognized as a disorder in brain development that likely begins in utero. Data has shown the brain dysfunction to begin during the first trimester of a baby's development. Researchers have hypothesized the cause of the condition to be a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

Symptoms and severity vary among patients with autism. Aggression and ritualistic behavior are two common symptoms that can often be reduced with drugs. According to McDougle the social relatedness component, i.e., the patient's ability to interact with and react to other people, is difficult to treat with drugs. Currently, the best approach for treating autism is to provide a structured environment and system of education, with the use of drugs to treat specific interfering behaviors. New research has shown the involvement of specific chemical neuron systems, which should be helpful in designing new drug treatments.

"Autism is a profound disorder for which there currently is no cure," says McDougle. "Unfortunately 75 percent of the children born autistic are also mentally retarded and 50 percent are mute. Families of autistic children endure much stress and it is imperative that we develop better treatments to help their children. We hope our research will provide valuable new information about treatments that can help patients and families."

The IU School of Medicine is one of three recipients of the NIH grant; the two other sites are the University of California at Los Angeles and the Yale University School of Medicine.

Dr. McDougle is a 1986 graduate of the IU School of Medicine. Previously he was director of the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit at the Connecticut Mental Health Center, and associate professor of psychiatry and of child adolescent psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine.

Families who would like additional information about the new research unit or autism can contact Dr. McDougle at (317) 278-3473.

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