Autism and photobiomodulation: improved behavior and symptoms

In 2018, neuroscience professor Gerry Leisman conducted a study to evaluate the effectiveness of photobiomodulation therapy in treating autism spectrum disorders. In 4 weeks, this red light therapy reduced the severity of autism disorders and behavior.

Autism

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder. It is characterized by impaired social integration and communication, associated with behavioral and sometimes intellectual developmental abnormalities (intellectual deficiency is not systematic, however). In France, approximately 700,000 people are affected by autism spectrum disorder, 100,000 of whom are under 20 years old. Autism has been recognized as a disability since 1996.

Treating Autism Spectrum Disorders with Photobiomodulation Therapy

Brain photobiomodulation therapy involves applying a specific red light to the patient's skull to treat brain injuries and other neurological and psychiatric problems.
This therapy is non-invasive, painless and drug-free.
If you are not yet familiar with this therapy, I invite you to read this page .

In this study, this specific light was applied to the patients' skulls for several minutes, twice a week.

What progress has been made for these autistic children treated using photobiomodulation?

Before talking about the results, it is important to clarify that this study is of quality. Indeed, the Israeli scientist and his team followed 40 children with autism and randomly separated them into 2 groups.

• The first group, consisting of 21 autistic children, received photobiomodulation treatment.
• The second group, called the placebo group, consisted of 19 autistic children and received no treatment (a fake photobiomodulation machine was used).

Neither the scientists nor the participants knew their group membership. Then, in order to measure the children's behavior and the severity of their autistic disorders, the researchers relied on two official tests:

• CGI (Clinical Global Impressions)
• ABC (Aberrant Behavior Checklist)

Progress noted by parents

An improvement in behavior

First, the "ABC" questionnaire is offered to parents so that they can measure their child's behavior . Lower scores reflect less pronounced autism spectrum disorders.

In light of these graphs, we see that the ABC scores of the group receiving the photobiomodulation treatment improved significantly (orange columns).

Furthermore, the improvement was progressive and continued over time, including during the 4 weeks after stopping photobiomodulation treatment.
Conversely, there is no change in the placebo group (blue columns).

An overall improvement

The same is true with the "CGI-C" scale, which allows for a global assessment of change .

At week 8, autistic symptoms and behaviors were reported as “significantly improved” for nearly half of the participants who received photobiomodulation treatment (orange columns).
In contrast, there was essentially no change for participants who received the placebo treatment (blue columns).

Progress noted by professionals

Then, clinicians assessed the severity of the children's disorders using the "CGI-S" scale.

After 4 weeks, all children who received photobiomodulation treatment showed improvement in the test (orange columns):

• no more children are in the "very severe" category.
• the "severe" category now only contains 2 children instead of 14.
• And after 4 weeks, 20 children are between the "borderline" and "moderate" categories.

Conclusion

The study concludes as follows:

The study found that photobiomodulation therapy could be an effective tool for reducing irritability and other symptoms and behaviors associated with autism spectrum disorder in children and adolescents, with positive changes maintained and increased over time.