Trial reportJournal of autism and developmental disorders2014
Brief report: an open-label study of the neurosteroid pregnenolone in adults with autism spectrum disorder.
Trial report in Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT01881737 (An Open-Label Pilot Study of Pregnenolone in the Treatment of Individuals With Autism), which is not on this map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
An Open-Label Pilot Study of Pregnenolone in the Treatment of Individuals With Autism
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Medical treatment of autism spectrum disorder in children: Current evidence, controversies, and clinical challenges.World journal of clinical pediatrics · 2026Article
- The role of neuroactive steroids in psychiatric and neurological disorders: Neurobiology and therapeutic perspectives.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- Placebo Effect in Clinical Trials in Autism: Experience from a Pregnenolone Treatment Study.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2025Article
- Neurosteroids Progesterone and Dehydroepiandrosterone: Molecular Mechanisms of Action in Neuroprotection and Neuroinflammation.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Drug repurposing in Rett and Rett-like syndromes: a promising yet underrated opportunity?Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
- Pregnenolone Inhibits Doxorubicin-Induced Cardiac Oxidative Stress, Inflammation, and Apoptosis-Role of Matrix Metalloproteinase 2 and NADPH Oxidase 1.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- A perspective on molecular signalling dysfunction, its clinical relevance and therapeutics in autism spectrum disorder.Experimental brain research · 2022Review
- BK channel-forming slo1 proteins mediate the brain artery constriction evoked by the neurosteroid pregnenolone.Neuropharmacology · 2021Article
- Impaired expression of the COSMOC/MOCOS gene unit in ASD patient stem cells.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Article
- Autism-Like Behavior in the Offspring ofFrontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
- Association of serum allopregnanolone with restricted and repetitive behaviors in adult males with autism.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2021Article
- Overlapping Molecular Pathways Leading to Autism Spectrum Disorders, Fragile X Syndrome, and Targeted Treatments.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2021Review
- Alteration of the steroidogenesis in boys with autism spectrum disorders.Translational psychiatry · 2020Article
- Biosynthesis and signalling functions of central and peripheral nervous system neurosteroids in health and disease.Essays in biochemistry · 2020Review
- Beyond the brain: A multi-system inflammatory subtype of autism spectrum disorder.Psychopharmacology · 2019Review
- Autism spectrum disorder: Consensus guidelines on assessment, treatment and research from the British Association for Psychopharmacology.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2018Review
- Assessing Sensory Processing Dysfunction in Adults and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Scoping Review.Brain sciences · 2017Article
- Persistent Angiogenesis in the Autism Brain: An Immunocytochemical Study of Postmortem Cortex, Brainstem and Cerebellum.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2016Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The objective of this study was to assess the tolerability and efficacy of pregnenolone in reducing irritability in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This was a pilot, open-label, 12-week trial that included twelve subjects with a mean age of 22.5 ± 5.8 years. Two participants dropped out of the study due to reasons unrelated to adverse effects. Pregnenolone yielded a statistically significant improvement in the primary measure, Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC)-Irritability [from 17.4 ± 7.4 at baseline to 11.2 ± 7.0 at 12 weeks (p = 0.028)]. Secondary measures were not statistically significant with the exception of ABC-lethargy (p = 0.046) and total Short Sensory Profile score (p = 0.009). No significant vital sign changes occurred during this study. Pregnenolone was not associated with any severe side effects. Single episodes of tiredness, diarrhea and depressive affect that could be related to pregnenolone were reported. Overall, pregnenolone was modestly effective and well-tolerated in individuals with ASD.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.