very low doese Klonopin treatment for ASD (mouse trial)

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This is relevant to my interests: Low-dose sedative eases autism symptoms in mice

Copy pasta:
.....The equivalent of one-tenth of a single pill of the anxiety drug clonazepam alleviates many autism-like behaviors in a mouse model.....

! !! !!.....What’s more, after two weeks of treatment, the mice become tolerant of the standard dose but not the low dose.....! !! !! !

...... This may explain why BTBR mice treated with the drug become more sociable, less hyperactive and less anxious. Treatment also improves the mice’s memory. Clonazepam has no effect on these behaviors in control mice.....

Sounds like a good thing.

OPPS posted the WRONG link: here's the right one Low-dose sedative eases autism symptoms in mice

I was just hospitalized and I actually noticed this effect in me possibly, I was more socially capable toward the end of my stay and all they did was cut my antid and add low dose klonopin.

At first people were avoiding me, then later and these were different people, were wanting to talking to me.

But of course one experience does not make proof.

I was also hospitalized recently during recovery from a tonic-clonic seizure and was administered a smallish dose of Klonopin (after two days of Ativan) to function as an AED and my experience seemed to support this as well... although it's difficult to assess the extent to which my symptoms were effected, because (a) benzodiazepines are narcotics and I am not tolerant to them, so I may have mistaken a pleasantly altered state of consciousness for measurable improvement in ASD symptoms, because (b) I've developed intense social anxiety as a result of my hyperanalytical approach to interpersonal interaction and medicating that may have had an effect on the manner in which I process social stimuli. Also, (c) the postictal state of a tonic-clonic seizure, especially when it comes with anterograde amnesia, is not exactly the best time for someone to conduct self-investigation in the first place. That being said, my family members did indicate after I signed out of the hospital that both my ability to be selectively attentive and my ability to recognize motive seemed heightened. It seemed much easier to compose eloquent sentences and passively maintain self awareness as well.

I'm not sure whether this is true of other people on the spectrum, but my perception of time has always been AWFUL and I often wonder if this may contribute to my tendency to get lost within myself. Of course it is more likely that those symptoms manifest together as a result of some prefrontal development issue, but either way, could the "slow" feeling that comes with benzodiazepine use counteract the imbalance of excitation and inhibition in the autistic brain? This would make sense, since benzodiazepines bind to GABAA receptors (which may have something important to do with autism by way of the anterior cingulate cortex), right? Which would theoretically give us the chance to prioritize stimuli and respond with more control. But what if better control includes loss of interest as a side effect?

Low dose Clonazepam is a GABA agonist, and increases availability levels in the brain; the effects for some can be remarkable. However as the spectrum is very diverse, and neurochemistry is very individual, not everyone will get the same effects.

If you choose Clonazepam, the key is low dosage - my own experiments and research suggest 0.25mg a day is enough - this is far lower than the usual prescribed dose.

Long term it carries possibilities of negative consequences, and there are safer ways of raising GABA levels, though in an anxiety crisis, I think low dose Clonazepam is the best option there is. This research is not a new discovery though.

I take Klonopin myself and it impairs cognition to an extent. It helps anxiety but it isn't a miracle pill even though I once thought I did function better with it b/c it lessons anxiety.

I prefer Ativan because it does not seem to mess with my memory that much, but that's just me.

They are letting me experiment with my dose and .25 seems to be right for me also. I have bad anxiety and it seems to help this a lot.

I have frequently written about how Clonazepam (and other things) increase the availability of the neurotransmitter/amino acid GABA in the brain, and that low availability of GABA in the brains of people on the spectrum has been extensively verified by researchers. This explains why Clonazepam 'works' for a section of people on the ASD spectrum. What is not as clear yet is why only the low dose works. I notice that most practising psychiatrists who blog about these issues know nothing about the dosage issue - they are still treating ASD clients as if they were neurotypical with neurotypical dosages and 'solutions'.

As I noted before, this research area is not new. Here is a link to some of the research history (only a very small part of the whole):

http://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/news/ ... ith-autism

I take it