N-acetylcysteine (NAC) for Children With Tourette Syndrome
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2014-01-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Tourette syndrome is a childhood-onset neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by multiple
motor and vocal tics that last for at least a year in duration. Currently, there exist
several effective pharmacological treatments for childhood tics including alpha-2 agonist
medications (guanfacine and clonidine) and neuroleptics (antipsychotic) medications. These
medications, however, have significant side-effects and are only partially efficacy in
treating tics.
N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is a natural supplement that acts as an antioxidant and glutamate
modulating agent. NAC has been used safely for decades in doses 20-40 times higher than in
this trial as an antidote for acetaminophen overdose. The only side-effect commonly seen with
NAC is nausea and this side-effect is seldom seen in the doses used in this trial.
NAC has recently been demonstrated to be effective in a double-blind, placebo-controlled
trial in adults with trichotillomania (chronic hair pulling). Hairpulling is hypothesized to
be closely related to tics because these conditions (1) have similar clinical characteristics
-- both groups typically experience urges before engaging in pulling or tics, (2)
neuroimaging studies suggest they involve similar brain circuits -- the basal ganglia, (3)
the same pharmacological treatments (neuroleptics) may be effective for both conditions and
(4) they tend to be inherited together in families. In other trials NAC has evidence of some
efficacy in treating diverse psychiatric conditions such as bipolar depression, schizophrenia
and cocaine dependence.
The investigators are conducting this trial to determine if NAC is an effective treatment for
tics.