Instrumental assessment of movement disorders in antipsychotic naive patients with autism and healthy controls

There is evidence that in autism repetitive and stereotyped behavior is related
to an increase of the basal ganglia, particularly the Nucleus Caudatus. An
interesting additional possibility is that other (mild) movement disorders
(such as dyskinesia and parkinsonism ism) are also common in autism and
possibly associated with the found structural abnormalities.

In addition, research shows that patients with autism are very sensitive to the
development of movement disorders (dyskinesia and parkinsonism) after the use
of antipsychotic drug, which is given in autism for the reason to reduce
repetitive behavior.

Most likely these movements cannot only be attributed to antipsychotic drug
use, but may form an integral part of the autistic syndrome and could be
regarded as an endophenotype of the disease.

It is therefore essential that patients with autism who have never used
antipsychotic medication be screened for the presence of these movement
disorders (dyskinesia and parkinsonism). As these movement disorders are most
likely to be mild, instrumental assessment must be used as it has proven to be
more objective, reliable and sensitive than traditional rating scales.

Perhaps that in the future it can be better predicted which patients with
autism are vulnerable to the development of movement disorders after
antipsychotic drug use.

Examine whether there are differences in both instrumental as well as clinical
assessment of movement disorders among drug naive patients with autism compared
with matched healthy controls.

Case-control study

The assessment of the movement disorders takes about 30 minutes per person and
can be held in a single research session. This research takes place in the
department of Child- and adolescent psychiatry of the University Medical Centre
Utrecht, the Netherlands. It includes non-invasive registration of movements by
means of a computer task which is easy to handle and not burdensome and a
non-invasive examination of the movements using clinical observation scales.
There is no risk to the extent known, even for minors. For this study children
and adolescents (6- 22 years) are included, because these groups are less
likely to ever have used antipsychotics medication. Therefore the presence of
possible movement disorders in antipsychotic patients with autism cannot be
attributed to medication, but is related to the disorder itself and could be
considered as a possible phenotype of autism. Participation in the study
provides no direct benefit to the subjects itself. However, perhaps that in the
future it can be better predicted which patients with autism are vulnerable to
the development of movement disorders after antipsychotic drug use.