Autism Speaks has announced that Alan Lewis, MD, PhD is among the 2015 class of Meixner Postdoctoral Fellows in Translational Research. The fellowship invests in rising talent in autism research. Lewis is a fourth-year psychiatry resident affiliated with the department’s Neuroscience Research Training Program.
The fellowship will support Lewis’s investigation of the safety, effectiveness and biological action of transdermal nicotine as a potential treatment for destructive and disruptive behavior in people who have autism.
From the Autism Speaks announcement:
Alan Lewis, a psychiatrist pursuing research at Yale University, will study the safety, effectiveness and biological action of transdermal nicotine as a potential treatment for destructive and disruptive behavior in people who have autism.
Challenging behaviors are not a core symptom of autism. But many children and adults affected by autism struggle with behaviors that pose a danger to themselves and others. When behavioral intervention fails, medication options are extremely limited and often cause unwanted side effects.
Research has suggested that, in some individuals with autism, aggressive behavior may result from problems affecting the brain’s nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. The chemical nicotine engages these receptors. In addition, studies with animals suggest that administering nicotine reduces aggression.
Dr. Lewis will test the potential benefits of nicotine therapy to reduce harmful behavior in two ways:
He will conduct a pilot clinical trial to assess the safety and effectiveness of transdermal (skin patch) nicotine in reducing disruptive and destructive behavior in participants who have autism.
He will study the biological action of nicotine in the brains of laboratory mice bred to display aggression and autism-like behaviors.
Dr. Lewis’s mentors at Yale include neuroscientist Marina Picciotto and child psychologist Denis Sukhodolsky.