49.2 A Pharmacological and Systems Neuroscience Approach to Identify Potential Regulators of Aggressive Behavior in Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Aggressive behavior can complicate many severe illnesses in neuropsychiatry, especially neurodevelopmental conditions such as ASD. For a subset of individuals, current behavioral and pharmacological treatments are not effective, and many commonly used pharmacotherapies confer the risk of significant side effects. Based on clinical observations of the interaction between nicotine withdrawal and aggressive behavior, we sought to determine whether targeting nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) might be a novel treatment strategy for pathological aggressive behavior.
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Source Type: research