In spite of its high incidence, extensive media coverage and major clinical burden to families, there is not a single approved European or American drug treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). The dominant genetic and psychiatric approaches to treat ASDs have various limitations, suggesting that a novel global approach to understand and treat ASDs is warranted. Based on the authors' converged expertise on brain development, ASD treatment and brain imaging, this book provides a fresh view of the disorder which is validated by experimental imaging and large clinical trials, culminating in the first large phase 3 final pediatric trial (on 400 children in EU countries and the US) using a repositioning of a drug used for decades to treat hypertension and edema. The convergence of experimental and clinical data on this disorder is unprecedented, confirming the potential of the drug to be the first pediatric treatment of ASDs.After explaining the mechanisms underlying ASDs, we describe specific cases of children who, after treatment, considerably improved their sociability and reduced their agitation. The book also discusses the skepticism that the authors met from the tenants of pure genetics and psychiatry, and why the abyssal poverty of information on developmental disorders has hampered progress in understanding and treating ASD.
