Antipsychotics in the Treatment of Autism
2 Antipsychotics in the Treatment of Autism Carmem Gottfried1,2 and Rudimar Riesgo1,2 1Neuroglial Plasticity Laboratory at Department of Biochemistry, Postgraduate Program of Biochemistry, Institute of Basic Health Sciences, 2Translational Research Group in ASD (GETEA), Child Neurology Unit, Clinical Hospital of Porto Alegre, 1,2Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil 1. Introduction The neurobehavioral syndromes are more frequent than we usually think. They are clinical challenges, because they demand knowledge from the physician as well as time for the correct approach. Such complaints are very frequent in hospital and addition to the private practice. For example, according to a survey carried out in our Hospital, the Child Neurology Unit made 10,622 evaluations in 2010, most of which were neurobehavioral syndromes including autism and other Pervasive Development Disorders. Because of the subtlety of the boundaries between Neurology and Psychiatry, the term neurobehavioral could also be called neuropsychiatric. These boundaries have been explored both in the clinical (Nunes and Mercadante, 2004) and in the experimental area (Quincozes-Santos et al., 2010). It is important to build a bridge between the clinical and the experimental research, especially when the issue is neuropsychiatric disorders. This linkage indubitably enhances the common knowledge of neurobehavioral alterations as well as it promotes the reciprocal enthusiasm. One of the most intriguing neurobehavioral syndromes is autism. The challenge starts with the difficulty of defining the disorder, continues with the limitations imposed by the lack of a clinical marker, and ends with the difficulties in the experimental research field. The word autism was used for the first time by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1911.
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